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Oscar Producers Explain Why Farrah Fawcett Was Missing From Memoriam
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The Movie God   |  @   |  

Farrah Fawcett

There were quite a few strange and questionable moments during this past Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony. Between some head-scratching winners to an angry George Clooney mystery, from random Kanye West ambushes, to the shocking and inexcusable exclusion of Farrah Fawcett from the In Memoriam section of the program, there was more than enough to talk about at the water cooler the next day.

It didn’t take long for the story behind that random ambush to come out, but why exactly was Fawcett forgotten? Well, the Academy has now attempted to explain their decision (yes, it was a decision), and folks might just be even more enraged knowing why than they were when it was just a question mark.

Continue reading to hear the explanation for yourself.

Radar Online spoke to Bruce Davis, executive director for the Academy, as well as Fawcett’s long-time partner Ryan O’Neal recently, and got all of the answers.

The short and simple reason for why Fawcett was not included in the segment? Well, there just wasn’t enough room for her. Yes, you read that correctly — producers of the show decided that the actress’s career was more television-based than film-based, and because they had to cut the list of names down from around 100 to their “required” number of 30, the choice had to be made.

Leslie Unger, another representative for the Oscars, said that “there are many angles that are looked at as to who to include and unfortunately we don’t include everyone.”

What does O’Neal think of all of this? Understandably, the man is quite upset by what has transpired.

It was a terrible decision and very hurtful. Farrah was a member of the Academy for over 40 years and we could not believe she did not get a mention.

Both Tatum [O’Neal] and I were very upset and we intend to write a letter to the Academy to try and get an explanation for this oversight on their behalf.

Quite frankly, we were stunned at the decision not to include her in the tribute and I feel that the Academy should be scolded for that, everyone was shocked.

The worst thing about this “explanation” that the Academy has offered, is of course the fact that Michael Jackson, who PROBABLY had a little more to do with music than movies, was very much included in the segment.

While Fawcett was much more of a TV actress, she also had about 18 films roles. These roles came in films like Myra Breckinridge, Logan’s Run, The Cannonball Run, Extremities (for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress to go along with her 5 other Globe TV nominations), The Apostle (for which she received a Spirit Award nomination), and Dr. T and the Women.

Jackson on the other hand does have 96 credits to his name when it comes to his music being used on film soundtracks, which is fine. As an actor, the story is much different. As far as films go, the only notable titles he did are The Wiz and Men in Black II, which was a cameo. Aside from that, it’s all of his music videos like Thriller and Bad, Captain EO, an episode of The Simpsons, and a 2004 movie called Miss Cast Away.

It wasn’t bad enough that Farrah Fawcett fought a valiant fight with cancer in front of all of our eyes, and the day she died just happened to become the same day that Michael Jackson died as well, which instantaneously deleted her from memory on every level of news coverage that you could find. Now there’s this unbelievable mishap to frown upon as well.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that Michael Jackson should have been replaced by Farrah — I think that he had more than an impact on the world to be included there — but I am saying that this is all pretty ridiculous. The Oscars are renown for running very late, and the In Memoriam segment last but a few minutes, so if there’s important names to be honored, put them up there no matter what!

Those of us who are fans of the Oscars don’t really care how long the ceremony lasts — it’s an annual tradition and it should run as long as it needs to run. If 100 important people pass away in a year, then put in the ten minutes it would take to acknowledge those losses.

6 Comments »

  1. I agree that Farrah should have been included and that it’d be worth the extra few minutes to include however many people died that year. Granted, her memory lives on even stronger now because of this snub, but I can see why her loved ones would be hurt over this.

    Comment by Empress Eve — March 9, 2010 @ 10:53 pm

  2. I didn’t watch the Oscars this year, but…

    The Memoriam has always been my least favorite part of the show. It’s a posthumous popularity contest, where the producers not only pick which people were important/cool enough to include, but calculate how much applause each person will get and order them accordingly. I can’t help but think of how sick the family/friends of the loved ones must feel, hearing people clap for Big Name Movie Star but not their humble makeup artist father named immediately afterward… to say nothing of the bereaved whose loved ones weren’t included at all.

    Either do it right, or don’t do it at all.

    Comment by Angie — March 9, 2010 @ 11:45 pm

  3. Forget Farah – where was Patrick McGoohan?!

    Comment by Devon — March 10, 2010 @ 11:36 am

  4. Totally agree, they should let In Memoriam run for as long as it needs to run. Like, we really needed a 5-minute ‘interpretive dance’ production number? But they couldn’t flash Farrah’s photo and a clip for 15 seconds? It was a terrible oversight.

    Comment by babs — March 11, 2010 @ 2:04 pm

  5. Devon has spoken the truth.

    Comment by Joseph — March 11, 2010 @ 6:22 pm

  6. One of the greatest actresses of the American Theatre who also was a SAG member in movies such as “The Other”, “Reversal of Fortune”, ” The Boys from Brazil”. She created the role of Edward Albees Martha in “Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf”. She played Desdemona with Paul Robeson in “Othello”, I think she was omitted from the rememberance list when she passed this worldly stage in 2004. Her name was Uta Hagen. Tinsel Town didn’t appreciate her enough.
    Ceres,
    “Ethel”

    Comment by Neil — March 11, 2010 @ 8:01 pm

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