YOUR Best Actress of 1963

Here are the results of the poll:

1. Patricia Neal - Hud (40 votes)

2. Leslie Caron - The L-Shaped Room (14 votes)

3. Natalie Wood - Love with the Proper Stranger (11 votes)

4. Rachel Roberts - This Sporting Life (6 vote)

5. Shirley MacLaine - Irma La Douce (4 votes)

Thanks to everyone for voting!

Best Actress 1963 - The resolution

After having watched and reviewed all five nominated performances, it's time to pick the winner!

5. Shirley MacLaine in Irma La Douce

Shirley MacLaine both saves and harms her movie as she often feels out of place but her no-nonsense approach to this part is also a welcome change of pace and helped to craft an entertaining, sometimes touching, sometimes amusing but never stupid character.

4. Natalie Wood in Love with the Proper Stranger

                     

Natalie Wood gives a performance that never goes beyond the surface but still works surprisingly well because her charm, her ability to handle comedy and drama and her clear display of Angie’s journey are still so intriguing, entertaining, poignant, funny and provoking.

3. Leslie Caron in The L-Shaped Room

In this very emotional performance, Leslie Caron gives a quiet and subtle piece of work that may be limited by the way her character was written but is also much more memorable than any exaggerated overacting would have been.

2. Patricia Neal in Hud

Patricia Neal’s performance is a beautiful example of a dedicated realism on the screen but also of an actress taking an underwritten and thin part and filling it with life thanks to her own acting, her own personality and her ability to use her material to craft the idea of a whole world beyond the written word.

1. Rachel Roberts in This Sporting Life

Rachel Roberts lingers like a ghost over every moment of her movie and she mixed moments of pure intensity with shocking and heartbreaking images and that way gave an incredibly effective turn that leaves a lasting and hunting impression.

 

Best Actress 1963: Natalie Wood in "Love with the Proper Stranger"

Considering that Natalie Wood was only 25 years old when she received her nomination for the romantic comedy/drama Love with the Proper Stranger, many Academy voters probably thought that she would have enough time in the future to finally take the gold home. After all, this was not only her first but already her third nomination. At the age of 17, she was nodded as Best Supporting Actress for her performance opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and then in 1961 for her devastating role as a young women suffering a nervous breakdown from sexual confusion in Splendor in the Grass. So, her nomination in 1963 was surely not seen as a situation of ‘now or never’ nor was her loss to Patricia Neal regarded as an oversight in any way. After all, who would have thought that, at the age of 25, Natalie Wood was already past her prime and would never be nominated again? Of course, she continued to be one Hollywood’s most popular actresses and starred in various more hits – but the time of true critical acclaim was over. Well, this can be seen in two ways – as the typical under-appreciation of a young and popular actresses who was never fully able to be taken seriously or as a much more than fair share of recognition for an actress whose talent very often rather divided the critics than united it. Well, the truth can probably be found somewhere in the middle. Sure, Natalie Wood was not the greatest actress that ever graced the screen – she often struggled to find true credibility in her roles, failed to leave a certain awkwardness in her line delivery behind or simply suffered from being put into roles that neither fit her talent or personality nor made it able for her to stretch herself as an actress. But on the other hand, one cannot help but admire the fact that she was one of the few child stars who made the transition to adult parts, that she could captivate the audience for so long – and that she sometimes was willing and determined to either take a risk that paid off, overcame the obstacles that laid in her way or simply had the right instincts and charm for a role that made it very enjoyable despite not being truly outstanding. Her work in Splendor in the Grass was the risk that paid off – a difficult and challenging part that Natalie Wood brought to life with shocking and exhausting realism and surely stands as the highpoint of her career. Her Maria in West Side Story was her overcoming of large obstacles – probably not everybody agrees here but I see her performance in this as truly heartbreaking and unforgettable. She may be straightened by her accent and her wooden screen partner but she still fills West Side Story with her own kind of energy and life that may not come from any dancing or singing but the liveliness of a young, emotional woman caught between feelings and responsibility and overwhelmed by her own passion – and her final on-screen moments are simply devastating and considering that this performance came in the same year as her other career-best performance in Splendor in the Grass, it's rather surprising that she failed to take home the Oscar that year. And Love with the Proper Stranger? This is the last case – a performance that was maybe not on the same level of her previous excellence nor a true powerhouse in itself and the writing also did not do her any favors by constantly dropping every bit of dramatic possibility for the sake of some quick laughs but Natalie Wood’s charm, personality and way of filling her part with a style that is light enough for the style of her movie while also catching some more serious undertones occasionally nevertheless were able to captivate the viewer and, even though not in a completely satisfying manner, made her work both entertaining and provoking.

It’s famously noted that 1963 saw not only one but two actresses nominated for performances in which they played unmarried women who had to deal with sudden pregnancy (‘Girls with technical difficulties’, as Gregory Peck put it at the awards show). But Leslie Caron and The L-Shaped Room took a much different approach to this subject than Natalie Wood and Love with the Proper Stranger. The L-Shaped Room is not a dark movie in any way but still presents a more realistic picture of a young woman caught in an unknown situation, dealing with its consequences and trying to find a new way of life for herself. The L-Shaped Room is not overly dramatic but it also does not take it matter or its leading lady too lightly. And Leslie Caron also focused more strongly on the inner struggle of the character she played. Natalie Wood was in a different situation that mostly demanded of her to play Angie Rossini from the outside since it was never truly interested in her personal fight but in the question ‘How do we get these two together in the end?’ Of course, there are moments when Natalie Wood found a deeper layer in this woman and showed that she did not play her with the demanded combination of smiles and tears but also with a true understanding of her personal situation – of only Love with the Proper Stranger had been more interested in those moments, then Natalie Wood could certainly have risen to a higher level in her part. But considering that her movie never saw the need to give the controversial topic of abortion and Angie’s own inner struggles any true focus and instead always put every plotline in the overall context of a wanna-be romance, she still got a lot (maybe even the most) out of it.

The beginning of Natalie Wood’s performance is not only a very intriguing entrance but maybe even her best scene of the entire picture. When she wants to tell Rocky (played with goofy charm by Steve McQueen) that she is pregnant and then suddenly realizes that he does not even remember her, Natalie Wood avoided to fill this moment with early pathos and instead let Angie react with a combination of slight amusement and anger at herself for having expected his reaction and yet having hoped for something else. And she quickly lets this realization turn into anger when she tells him that she only came to him for the address of a doctor who will help her with her ‘problem’. It’s commendable that Natalie Wood refused to win any sympathy at this moment and showed that Angie is not in the process of making up her mind but actually made it up already – or at least, that’s what she thinks. As mentioned before, Love with the Proper Stranger never gives Natalie Wood the chance to display her character’s thoughts about the child growing inside of her but only wants her to reflect about her emotional feelings towards Rocky. In some ways, it’s a typical romance between two different characters who everyone knows will end up together at the end any way – the pregnancy is apparently only thrown in to spice things up a bit. But this shift of focus both harms the movie and Natalie Wood as Angie very often comes across as so…thoughtless and one-dimensional and even though this is not Natalie Wood’s fault, it still does prevent her from digging further in the part than she might have had otherwise. And even the changes and the growth of Angie are mostly done from an outside points-of-view – whenever Angie stands up for herself, realizes some unexpected truth about herself or simply comes to an important conclusion, it is mostly done with a big speech, a dramatic monologue and some wordy action that lacks too much subtlety and shows that Natalie Wood is mostly following the screenplay from A to B to C to D without trying to find her own tempo, her own pattern and her own ideas.

So, there seem to be a lot of obstacles in this role which would make it seem that this performance may actually rather fall into the ‘West-Side-Story-category’ – but unlike her Maria, Natalie Wood’s Angie is not a creation that overcame all these obstacles. Her very often temperamental and fiery interpretation sometimes don’t connect with her more quiet moments because they don’t come across as another side of the same character but rather as another side of Natalie Wood’s acting. Her attempts to appear clumsy and a little confused when she it having dinner at the house of her suitor feels a bit too forced and uninspired. And most of all, her chemistry with Steve McQueen, which is the major foundation of Love with the Proper Stranger, often feels strangely unsatisfying because neither actor seems to be quite sure of what to do with his and her character and where to take them. Their relationship feels too forced into the movie despite actually being its major part and Natalie Wood often seems to be acting more ‘independently’ from Steve McQueen instead of trying to build a union between them. And unlike Leslie Caron, Natalie Wood also does not make it completely believable that this young woman would actually get into the kind of trouble she finds herself in – Leslie Caron played Jane with a certain melancholy and acceptance that made it plausible that she would just go to bed with a man because they both wanted to do it. Natalie Wood makes Angie often too resentful and distant to make this aspect truly acceptable. So, all this shows that neither the movie nor Natalie Wood’s performance are flawless – but, as stated before, her performance is still able to fall into the third category of her work as it that shows that her instincts are often right and her charm mostly helpful enough for the occasion.

Her first on-screen moments, as just mentioned, are maybe the highlight of her performance but there is still much to enjoy. Most of all, Natalie Wood knows how to handle the comedy in her performance without overdoing it. When she is arguing with her stereotypical Italian family, slamming doors, shouting through the apartment, packing her bags to leave forever only to come back a few moments later, she does it in a way that is somehow completely unexpected in a movie likes this simply because she does not try to go for any dramatic intensity but mostly emphasizes all these scenes with a slightly exaggerated acting style that is genuinely…funny. Yes, she may miss to craft the character of Angie in these moments and, just like the movie itself, drops dramatic depth and development for the sake of short-term entertainment but within these limitations, it’s still a refreshing and sometimes actually touching approach because it works as a nice contrast to later, more dramatic scenes. Natalie Wood also may not truly work well together with Steve McQueen but what she does achieve is the captivating portrayal of a woman who is looking for help only to realize that the man who is supposed to help her actually needs her much more – not in any romantic way but only regarding the pregnancy, a topic that Angie handles with much more maturity and practicality than him. Of course, Angie’s determination to have an abortion does not last long and soon changes when she is faced with the dark reality of an empty, hidden room and a woman who is willing to risk the life of young girls for the sake of some money. Natalie Wood’s silent horror as she slowly undresses and later her breakdown are again moments that may seem slightly over-the-top but still work very well and leave a haunting impression. Unfortunately, Natalie Wood again forgot to go for a deeper approach here for the sake of the obvious drama – would Angie also have rejected the abortion in the end if she could have gone to a normal hospital? What does she truly feel about the baby? How does she see her life in the future? While Leslie Caron showed a woman who was constantly dealing with these thoughts and questions, Natalie Wood underestimated their impact and overestimated the possibilities of superficial drama. But despite all this, her characterization does feel strangely complete – the relation with Rocky, with her family, with herself, it all somehow comes together in the end and while she did not really tell the audience much about Angie than apart from what the screenplay told us anyway, she still gives the illusion of having done much more.

So, Natalie Wood gives a performance that never goes beyond the surface but still works surprisingly well because her charm, her ability to handle comedy and drama, and her clear display of Angie’s journey are still so intriguing, entertaining, poignant, funny and provoking. Neither Natalie Wood nor Love with the Proper Stranger aimed for grand drama but settled for a lower level on which Natalie Wood was able to impress nonetheless. Like Shirley MacLaine in Irma La Douce, she could have done more if a) the screenplay had allowed her to and b) she had actually been willing to do it, but her quiet moments of self-realization during a moment alone with Rocky, her desperate attempts to find her own life while being aware that she is falling in love with Rocky after all or simply her strong screen presence are enough to applaud her even so. In the end, for all her efforts she receives




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Best Actress 1963

The next year will be 1963 and the nominees were

Leslie Caron in The L-Shaped Room

Shirley MacLaine in Irma La Douce

Patricia Neal in Hud

Rachel Roberts in This Sporting Life

Natalie Wood in Love with the Proper Stranger

YOUR Best Actress of 1961

Here are the results of the poll:

1. Natalie Wood - Splendor in the Grass (25 votes)

2. Piper Laure - The Hustler & Sophia Loren - La Ciociara (22 votes)

3. Audrey Hepburn - Breakfast at Tiffany's (10 votes)

4. Geraldine Page - Summer and Smoke (8 votes)

Thanks to everyone for voting!

Best Actress 1961 - The resolution

After having watched and reviewed all five nominated performances, it's time to pick the winner!

5. Geraldine Page in Summer and Smoke

It seems that the word ‘confusing’ does describe this performance best because it is one of the most affected and ‘obvious’ performances this category has ever seen but at the same time there is something incredibly fascinating and heartbreaking about Geraldine Page’s portrayal that so beautifully catches so many nuances of Alma and is able, despite all the obstacles, to rise to the occasion of this demanding role.

4. Piper Laurie in The Hustler

                     

Piper Laurie created Sarah as a mysterious and pathetic presence that both doesn’t and does fit into the environment of The Hustler. She may not be the driving force of the story and is mostly reacting to Paul Newman’s Eddie but her moving performance which effectively shows her character’s fate and tragedy evokes some unforgettable images.

 3. Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's

Audrey Hepburn portrays this character with an acting style that combines her usual openness and relaxedness in front of the camera with a distinct closeness that seems to come from a sadness and maybe even a depression inside. Her grandest achievement is not only to look like the part but actually bringing it to life in a manner that is very natural considering the eccentric and stylized nature of the character.

2. Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass

Natalie Wood is usually not among the most celebrated actresses of her area but her here she gives an absolutely luminous and daring performance in which she handles the difficulties of the character with astonishing ease and earnestness. Even though her character goes from one extreme to the other in a world she doesn’t understand, Natalie Wood always played her with a strong combination of subtle emotions and shocking realism.

                

1. Sophia Loren in La Ciociara

It’s obvious in every frame of La Ciociara that Sophia Loren felt a very strong connection to her character and that her ‘home field advantage’ helped her to give a very natural and stupendous performance. She  created a character that is both simple and complex and she thankfully always kept its directness as she seemed to get lost in the feelings of Cesira and gave a performance that is neither studied nor overly spontaneous but rather a thought-out collection of emotional and intuitive gestures. 

Best Actress 1961: Natalie Wood in "Splendor in the Grass"

She may not have won the Oscar but 1961 surely was Natalie Wood’s year. Besides proofing that she isn’t the little girl who believes in Santa Clause anymore with her performance as a sexually confused teenager in Splendor in the Grass, she further showed her versatility when she also took on the part of the Puerto Rican heroine in the Best Picture winner and classic movie musical West Side Story. This strong combination of remarkable talent wasn’t enough to overcome Sophia Loren who also displayed a sudden change of image into a serious, dramatic actress but it forever cemented her status as a talented character actress and serves as a beautiful legacy to her willingness to constantly find new challenges for herself.

Splendor in the Grass is a gripping tale about sexual tension and the confusion it evokes in growing teenagers. The whole story may too often suffer from heavy symbolism or self-important dialogue but Natalie Wood’s strong portrayal of a young woman driven to a nervous breakdown by sexual repression and society’s conventions is the one element that brings everything together with unforgettable dedication. Deanie is essentially torn apart by her own desires and society’s expectations. There is a longing inside her, a willingness to give her body to the man she loves, Bud, the son of the richest family in town and the dream of every high school-girl but at the same time her mother keeps telling her that men don’t respect girls who go to bed with them, that she would ruin her chance to marry him and that, after all, women don’t enjoy sex anyway but let the man have it – after marriage. Deanie, being the good girl she is, doesn’t seem to be able to fully comprehend these advices – why does she want to have sex with Bud if a woman is not supposed to enjoy it? Should she follow her own desires or her mother’s expectations and advices?
Bud on the other hand, receives rather different advice from his father and the two conversations portray the differences in thinking between man and women, rich and poor and between the advices for sons and daughters. Bud’s father tells his son to find a girl that will fulfil his sexual needs – but not Deanie since he is serious about her and, even worse, it might force him to marry her. Both parents advice their children to not have sex but for different reasons.

In this atmosphere, a world in which it isn’t clear if people prefer to talk about sex but not do it or prefer to have sex but not talk about it, it becomes more and more difficult for Deanie to distinguish between her instincts and her thoughts, between her love to Bud and her feelings of responsibility. Splendor in the Grass comes from a time when the thought about a woman being mentally destroyed by sexual longings is seen as the most logical possibility and Natalie Wood is therefore cast in a part that is both a challenge and an obstacle for her. Deanie surely asks her to reach new heights as an actress and create much more complexity than she had done so far in her career but Deanie is also a character that reflects a conservative view from the 50s on women’s’ behaviour in the 20s. This way Deanie could easily have become a collection of nervous tics and hysterical breakdowns without any true core but Natalie Wood magnificently took this part and gave it an emotional honesty and heartbreaking clarity. Her Deanie isn’t the ‘queen of the school’ but a rather typical student whose beauty gains her a lot of popularity but Natalie Wood demonstrates right from the start that Deanie’s feelings for Bud are true and that Deanie is not a girl who uses her looks to her own advantage but rather focuses her own behaviour on her wish to make him happy. Besides that, she is also a typical, but surprisingly serious student who doesn’t only want to be loved by Bud but also by her parents and her teachers. She symbolizes a certain ‘American perfection’ but all this isn’t able to remain once the controversial and difficult subject of sex enters her life.

Natalie Wood remarkably found a very balanced way to portray this rather unbalanced character. She constantly shows that Deanie has honest feelings for Bud and that it’s the loss of his love and his affection that causes her mental instability. It’s a simple story told in a complex way. Natalie Wood also avoided all the expected traps that such a character brings. Yes, she may look too adoringly at Warren Beatty while she is walking down the hall with him but she doesn’t turn Deanie into a cliché in all the extremes, loud and quiet, of her performance but instead keeps her grounded and real. Especially the scenes with Bud’s ‘scandalous’ sister are so interesting because Natalie Wood shows how Deanie is both amused and appalled by her behaviour and her open talk of sex and love and that way always has her own character constantly guessing her own intentions.

In one of her first scenes, Natalie Wood is kissing Bud in a lonely car with a seriousness and passion that normally would lead to more but Deanie, as much as she is beginning to feel a desire in her, still rejects Bud’s advances. The picture of the river and a damn will appear again in the movie and it’s not hard to believe that the movie makers used the river as a symbol for Bud’s will to move forward while Deanie is the damn that keeps him from going further which only impounds the sexual tension in Bud that he will finally act out with another girl. From this moment on sex becomes the constant theme of Splendor in the Grass, a constant battle of desire and repression and Natalie Wood’s Deanie is right in the middle of this – she has to deal with all kinds of inputs but can’t find an output for herself. Her mother tells her that nice girls don’t have sexual feelings and since she wants to be nice but can’t deny her feelings, her confusion begins to grow. It’s clear that Deanie wants to find the best way to please everyone around her and she also wants to show Bud her love and devotion which almost makes her look like his loyal wife – the way she acts concerned when he is wounded after a football game is the best example. Later, Deanie finally decides to sleep with Bud to prove her love but again her mother irritates her by telling her about Bud’s sister who got pregnant and had an abortion – this again shows how much Deanie suffers from the various demands that are made at her. Should she follow Bud’s wishes or her mother’s advices?

What could very easily have turned into a clichéd soap-opera at this point thankfully made a drastic but also intriguing turn when the relationship between Deanie and Bud suddenly ends and the combination of humiliation, frustration and confusion leads Deanie to a nervous breakdown and a suicide attempt. Why did he leave her when she so hard tried to behave as society expected of her? She tried to be respectable and proper when Bud wanted to sleep with her and when she basically throws herself at him, he reminds her to be a ‘nice girl’ and rejects her – it’s clear that sex overstrains Deanie. Especially at the school ball, Natalie Wood portrays the neediness and desperation of Deanie very well. In showing this path of desperation, Natalie Wood is able to deliver various outstanding moments that completely dominate her performance and make other, rather conventional scenes, pale in comparison. Her scene when she slowly breaks down in school while reading a poem that so obviously mirrors her own situation is a heartbreaking moment and Natalie Wood beautifully combines everything that Deanie’s character wants to express – confusion, fear, inability to cope with life as it is right now. She believable walks this character’s path and it doesn’t seem like she is only walking it because the screenplay asks her to but because this is the path she would both choose but also be forced upon. Natalie Wood keeps the heartbreaking element in her performance when she tells her mother that she wants to die – it’s a shocking moment that Natalie Wood does incredibly beautifully because she whispers the words in a rather helpless way, without any hysterics or exaggerate gestures. The anticipated outburst of emotions that seems to have swollen up inside of Deanie finally comes during her breakdown in the bathtub which is probably one of the most exciting moments this category has ever seen. The way she completely lets herself go, seems so affected but also unaffected at the same time, throws her head in the water, moves her hand to her mouth, laughs, cries, shouts and shivers is almost painful to watch and she believably brings herself into a state of more and more hysteria with every word – a chilling moment that is surprisingly subtle despite the nature of the scene.

What could have been over-the-top and filled with sexual suggestions turned into a fascinating and captivating tour-de-force. Since Deanie doesn’t know how to act in these surroundings she tends to go too far in either direction, trying to save her reputation too hard or being willing to throw it away too easily. A lot of the movie’s themes and messages could have been lost in the sometimes unfocused direction but Natalie Wood carries and represents them wonderfully. At the end of the story, she doesn’t ‘solve’ the character but leaves her future open. Deanie may have recognized that she doesn’t need Bud anymore but it’s not sure if she will always follow her own realisations and how her sexual morals will affect her life from now on. But just like for the entire movie before, Natalie Wood always kept the essence of her character even though she underwent so many radical changes.

Natalie Wood is usually not among the most celebrated actresses of her area but her here she gives an absolutely luminous and daring performance in which she handles the difficulties of the character with astonishing ease and earnestness. Even though her character goes from one extreme to the other in a world she doesn’t understand, Natalie Wood always played her with a strong combination of subtle emotions and shocking realism. For this she gets

Best Actress 1961

The next year will be 1961 and the nominees were

Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's

Piper Laurie in The Hustler

Sophia Loren in La Ciociara

Geraldine Page in Summer and Smoke

Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass