MovieChat Forums > Shampoo (1975) Discussion > What Did Lee Grant Do in the Film to Mer...

What Did Lee Grant Do in the Film to Merit an Oscar?


I love Warren Beatty and the whole cast of this film, but it just did not work for me. Beatty was essentially playing himself but as a hairdresser. I did not find anything funny. And Lee Grant is a marvelous actress, but I did not think she did anything special in the film to deserve an Oscar (was a pretty weak year for supporting actresses, so that helped her).

And as for the ending, nowhere in this universe can you expect anybody to choose Jack Warden over Warren Beatty.

reply

[deleted]

[deleted]

A make up Oscar? Actually, I didn't think her make-up was that great either.

reply

Grant is one of the few truly supporting roles that deserved the nomination and the win. So many times actors who are really leads get nominated and win in this category (Marcia Gay Harden for "Pollack" is the first one that comes to mind but there are others). Besides that, Grant pulls of one of the film's most difficult scenes: when she realized George and her daughter have had sex, she STILL wants to have sex with George. It was completely believable as she was playing a woman who was so lonely and in need that she didn't care about what happened. The important thing is that she didn't make it revolting. She made us understand what drove her.

reply

I think you are looking way too much into it. The script probably told her to act slightly shocked and then moan a little when trying to seduce Beatty. It was a god-awful mediocre part. How she got singled out of the entire cast is amazing.

reply

1975'S Oscar nominations were the most bizarre I've seen. Category robbery was born in this year when the Academy decided to nominate Louise Fletcher as Best Actress, when she clearly was Supporting. The atrocious Best Actress nominations that year echoed Ellen Burstyn's snide comment that 1975 should not have a Best Actress category. This is after her winning the Oscar just a year before in the category she was boycotting. I'm also sure it may have had something to do with her not getting the role of Nurse Ratched that she persued. She may have then been in the company of Louise Rainer and Kate Hepburn as actresses winning the prize two years in a row. Would Ellen be burstyn the bubbles of 1975s actress nominees if she were herself nominated? Ratcheds role was extremely coveted with Angela Landsbury and Anne Bancroft also in the running. If Fletcher had not been replaced by Lily Tomlin in NASHVILLE ,a role Fletcher wanted dearly , Burstyn may have been ratched and Fletcher would have been nominated as Supporting Actress for NASHVILLE in the category she belonged in in the 1st place! Ah , the drama.
I too believe Grant received her Sympathy Oscar for SHAMPOO that like pity sex, it made the academy voters feel that they did a great thing for someone who was ostracized. As bad and shrill as Grants performance was, the Academy nominated her again the next year for her abominably horrid , overwrought performance in VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED.
While i do not agree with Ellen Burstyn that the Best Actress category should have been abolished that year-i do believe more deserving nominees were left out of the race. Glenda Jackson should not have been nominated for a filmed play of HEDDA (that was also the problem with the best actor nominees that year as Max Schell and James Whitmore were also nominated for filmed plays-not cinema in my eyes)-in her place the amazing Karen Black in THE DAY OF THE LOCUST should have been nominated-AND won. Louise Fletcher should have been knocked down to Supporting-replacing and winning in the Grant slot. In her place should have been Mariangela Melato for the original SWEPT AWAY( and her costar, Giancarlo Giannini should have grabbed the bEST aCTOR slot bowlderdized by James Whitmore for GIVE EM HELL HARRY and George Burns should have been bumped from supporting in THE SUNSHINE BOYS to Best and taken the place of Max Schell in THE MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH), An outstanding foreign language performance in a classic film. Carol Kanes small performance in HESTER STREET should have been replaced by Marilyn Hasset's heartwrenching work in THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN-a role that defined Best Actress nominee-if it were Susan Hayward in the roles in the 50s! The Academy got two Actress nominees correct that year- Ann Margrets all singing, powerhouse performance in TOMMY and the exquisitely beautiful Isabelle Adjani in THE STORY OF ADELE H.
Lee Grant won clearly for sympathy (which also spilled over to the Emmy nominations that year when she was nominated as Best Actress in a comedy for FAY -a show that only ran for four episodes!)-something by now we all take for grant-ed. Possibly the most outrageous nomination in 1975s Oscars-a seies of nominees that looked like they were voted on by the CUCKOOS NESTR inmates-was Brenda Vaccaro's role as Helen Gurley Brown (yes -thats who she played!)in ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH-one of Hollywoods trashiest movies-ever. It had lesbianism (with Melina Mercouri and Alexis Smith in a bedroom romp), homosexuality, torrid sex, drugs, booze and David Jannsens naked backside. In a Hollywood vs Nashville showdown she won the Golden Globe award battling four NASHVILLE Supp Actress nominees AND Lee Grant. Maybe the Golden Globes aint so bad after all.

reply

Can you perhaps expand on your theory and tell us what you really think?

reply

Now That is funny!

reply

And did that poster ever hear of a paragraph?

reply

Paragraphs are against the dude's religion; whatever happened to religious freedom in this country? (Kidding, shut up!)

IMO, the nominees for best supporting actor & best supporting actress that year should have been:

Ned Beatty, Keith Carradine, Henry Gibson, Michael Murphy, Keenan Wynn
Barbara Baxley, Ronee Blakley, Barbara Harris, Lily Tomlin, Gwen Welles

...all for the same movie, and I'm sure I don't have to mention which one. Now that would've been sumthin'!

(This is also why Robert Altman should've gotten best director!)

reply

IMO, the nominees for best supporting actor & best supporting actress that year should have been:
etc.

Have to agree with you fingertyps. How Lee Grant copped a gong for her "nothing special" turn in this, I'll never understand, though happy to go along with those insisting it was a kiss and make up gong?

reply

I agree with most of your post, ep193577, except for your opinion of Jackson and her nomination for HEDDA. It is one of her best performances - she is funny, evil, and ultimately riveting - and the nomination was totally deserved.

reply

[deleted]

Someone who values stability not to mention an ADULT would prefer Jack Warden.

Aside from being a hairdresser and stud - was George good for anything else? Not really.

reply