Words and Music (1948)

Picture: Words and Music (1948)

Stars: June Allyson, Perry Como, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Mickey Rooney, Ann Sothern, Tom Drake, Cyd Charisse, Betty Garrett, Janet Leigh, Marshall Thompson, Mel Torme, Vera-Ellen

Director: Norman Taurog

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Ann Sothern: click here to learn more about Ms. Sothern (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

By the late 1940's, about the time that Ann Sothern would be soon entering her forties (she was born in 1909), her career had hit a decided slump.  The Maisie pictures ended in 1947, and while she had consistently made movies throughout the decade, other than Maisie the movies hadn't really caught on in the same way-she wasn't an established star like Judy Garland or Gene Tierney, not the kind who could demand respect & acclaim & Oscar nominations, and as a result her contract was in peril with MGM.  In 1948, she tried to jump-start her career with two musicals, April Showers, which was a poorly-reviewed musical for Warner Brothers, and then Words and Music. Words and Music was a weird film for Sothern because by most standards, it was a hit, wildly popular both domestically & abroad...but due to exorbitant costs (including giving Judy Garland a fortune for what amounts to little more than a cameo), the film couldn't break even, and as a result, Sothern's star continued to diminish.  Today we'll look at Words and Music which, despite an all-star lineup of MGM talent, is listless & forgettable.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is a semi-autobiographical look at the creative partnership between Richard Rodgers (Drake) and Lorenz Hart (Rooney), two of the bigger names of the early 20th Century for musical theater.  Most modern audiences know Rodgers for his partnership with Oscar Hammerstein, which produced classics like Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific, but his time with Hart was very successful.  American songbook classics like "The Lady is a Tramp," "Manhattan," and "Blue Moon" came out of their partnership.  Throughout the film, we see how Rodgers wooed his eventual wife (played by Janet Leigh here) while Hart's stature causes him to suffer with women, and tumble into a deep depression.  This is interspersed with "cameos" from much of the biggest names in the cast doing musical number versions of classic Rodgers & Hart numbers.

The film's biggest problem is that, even for an MGM musical, the plot is pretty thin.  Rodgers' life seems idyllic & pretty much an overnight success (in a fourth-wall break in the opening scenes of the movie, he basically admits as such), which might make for fine domesticity in real life, but isn't great for a movie.  Hart's life was much more complicated, but it was his homosexuality (and the homophobic culture of the 1940's) that caused his alcoholism, self-hatred, and eventual friction with Rodgers that led the partnership to break up.  No one in the film can pull off him simply being upset about being short work (since him being gay in an MGM movie would've been unthinkable), particularly Mickey Rooney.  Forget for a fact that Rooney is about as good of an example as you can come up with for a short guy whose success led to romantic touchdowns (the man married Ava Gardner, for crying out loud); Rooney is simply not a good enough actor to play a part this subtle, and his histrionics totally derail the movie.

The film's best part are the musical cameos, though our star Sothern hardly stands out in this regard.  Admittedly, Sothern is a fine singer but her skill-set is best used in comedy & dialogue.  When you put her next to Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, & June Allyson, all four troupers whose biggest talent was as musical-comedy stars...you just can't compete.  Garland had $100,000 worth of medical bills at the time & used her cameo here to get them all paid off, but honestly the real highlight of the movie is Lena Horne, singing the hell out of "The Lady is a Tramp" in what is the most-remembered sequence in Words and Music.  Alas, Horne was too much of a financial risk in Southern theaters at the time, and so we don't get enough of her...and the rest of the movie can't compare.

OVP: The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954)

Film: The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954)

Stars: William Holden, Grace Kelly, Fredric March, Mickey Rooney, Earl Holliman

Director: Mark Robson

Oscar History: 2 nominations/1 win (Best Film Editing, Best Special Effects*)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Grace Kelly-click here to learn more about Ms. Kelly (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As we mentioned earlier this month in our introduction about Grace Kelly, the actress-turned-princess didn't make a lot of movies (a total of 11 narrative films in her career), and almost half of those movies were made in 1954, so it makes sense that we would get a second film in the span of Kelly's career from that year.  Last week we talked about Kelly's relationship with Alfred Hitchcock, which frequently bordered on (or, let's be real, crossed into) the abusive, and an indication of the problematic troubles the director would get into with many of his upcoming leading ladies during what is considered his peak creative period (ranging from the early 1950's to the early 1960's).  This week, we're going to talk about The Bridges of Toko-Ri, but we're also going to talk about the other major moment in Grace Kelly's 1954-the Oscar win that still strikes passion in the hearts of filmgoers everywhere considering whom she beat to get that trophy.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Bridges at Toko-Ri is about Harry Brubaker (Holden), a reluctant naval officer in the middle of the Korean War.  Brubaker is not exactly a pacifist, but he also cannot relate to his fellow man, and feels like he's in a war that the American public doesn't entirely understand nor do they care about in the same way they did World War II.  He is mentored by Rear Admiral Tarrant (March), who sees a lot in Brubaker that reminds him of his late son, who was killed in World War II (and Tarrant has not been able to emotionally reckon with the death of his child).  Brubaker's wife Nancy (Kelly) shows up unexpectedly for Brubaker's leave, though their romantic rendezvous is interrupted when Brubaker's hotheaded friend Mike (Rooney) gets into a fight with a guy who has run off with Mike's "girl" (it's clear as the film goes on that she was using him for money & had no romantic inclinations to him).  While away, Tarrant tells Nancy about the horrors of war, and that her husband (whom she is angry about helping Mike rather than staying with her) might not come back.  In fact, this is the case as (I told you there was a spoiler alert here), both Holden's & Rooney's characters do die during a reconnaissance mission, making all of the prophecy about Brubaker's potential death come to pass.

Bridges at Toko-Ri could be a great movie.  The special effects are impressive (that Oscar win feels legitimate considering the combination of real-world and scale model effects during the battle sequence, which feel pretty seamless onscreen & probably why it was also cited for editing), and the story of the film is quite fascinating, and somewhat ahead-of-its-time.  World War II was the last war (to date) that was fought to any degree on American soil, and as a result all of the American wars since have been in another country's backyard, making patriotism more symbolic than something that is part of day-to-day fear.  That conversation, which runs heavily through the movie, is a conversation worth having, and it's particularly striking in 1954, when a war movie of this nature wouldn't usually be so introspective.

But the movie doesn't rely upon that narration, and the effects are secondary to the plot.  Holden doesn't give us much beyond the surface-level as Brubaker, and Kelly is bland as his wife, in a limited role considering her billing where she has little to say other than to try & be an audience surrogate (she is gone during long stretches of the movie-this is a supporting part).  March, the best actor in the cast, is also the best in show but he's not really central to the plot, and lord help me, Mickey Rooney is actively bad in this movie.  Rooney is one of my least favorite actors of the Classical Hollywood (he might honestly be the least amongst the major stars of the era), and he plays hotheaded, entitled Mike with the grace of a bulldog, totally clomping over the more delicate aspects of the story.

As I mentioned above, Kelly didn't win an Oscar for this, but she would win for The Country Girl, a movie I have seen before which is why we aren't featuring it this month for Saturdays with the Stars.  Kelly is okay in The Country Girl (I generally rag on this performance, but looking back on my notes about it at the time, I'm more middling than actively against it), but it's the sort of performance that makes sense for a win.  She'd made five films that year, was a beautiful young woman making her mark in Hollywood, and for the most part her competition was not the kind that would win: you had two recent winners in Jane Wyman & Audrey Hepburn, and Dorothy Dandridge was making history as the first Black actress to be nominated for Lead Actress, but 1954 Hollywood wasn't progressive enough to give her the trophy.  But the fifth nominee was Judy Garland in A Star is Born, generally considered to be one of the best performances in Hollywood history.  Garland is spectacular in the part, and was not only enjoying the kind of comeback only a true legend could pull off (years of drug & alcohol abuse had made the early parts of the 1950's a question mark if she could do a role like this again, or honestly if she'd even live to make it to 1954), but she had just given birth to her son Joey two days before the ceremony, which would have added a great bit of heartwarming drama to the ceremony.  Kelly's win was rough on Garland, who clearly expected the win, and perhaps knew on some level she'd never get another chance like this (despite a future nomination in 1961, she'd have been right-Judy Garland would never win a competitive Oscar).  Next week, we're going to talk about one of the last films that Grace Kelly would ever make, and how, less than two years after she was crowned the toast of Hollywood, she would leave it forever.

OVP: Boys Town (1938)

Film: Boys Town (1938)

Stars: Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Full, Leslie Fenton, Bobs Watson

Director: Norman Taurog

Oscar History: 5 nominations/2 wins (Best Picture, Director, Actor-Spencer Tracy*, Adapted Screenplay, Original Story*)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

In the 1930's & 40's, it was quite popular (particularly with the Academy) to honor films that featured devout religious figures in major roles.  This isn't something entirely out-of-the-ordinary for Oscar, who has throughout the decades showered biblical epics like The Robe and The Ten Commandments and (most notably) Ben-Hur with nominations, but the films of this kind in the early Classical Hollywood period weren't plucked from the Old Testament-they were simply about religious men & women and the mundane (or not so mundane) aspects of their own lives.  The peak of this was arguably 1944/1945's one-two punch of Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary's, both of which were nominated for Best Picture (the former won) & made mountains of cash at the box office.  Less-than-a-decade earlier, though, was 1938's Boys Town, also cited for Best Picture and winning Spencer Tracy his second (and last) Oscar for Best Actor.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Father Flanagan (Tracy), a real-life figure who believes "there's no such thing as a bad boy," and is intent on proving it by starting a sanctuary for troubled youth called Boys Town, where the young men who live there have their own government & judicial system, where they disperse their own punishments.  This seems to work, but Father Flanagan encounters considerable trouble when Whitey Marsh (Rooney) joins the school; his brother is in prison for murder, and Whitey is sent there against his will.  When he stays, he decides to prove Father Flanagan wrong, running for "Mayor of Boys Town" under a rebellious campaign, trying to wheel-and-deal his way to power to show up Father Flanagan, but it doesn't work & he leaves.  As he's departing, though, the little boy named Pee Wee (Watson) who has been following Rooney around for the whole movie, is struck by a car.  Whitey is horrified, thinking Pee Wee might die, and he runs back to see his brother, who accidentally shoots him & swears him to secrecy on a robbery he's witnessed, a secrecy that could doom Boys Town.  As one would expect, Whitey doesn't keep the secret & instead saves Boys Town, and becomes its mayor.

The film, as I mentioned above, is reminiscent of later films like Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary's, which...isn't a compliment coming from me.  Those two films are striking not just because they were so commercially & critically popular, but because they're essentially about nothing.  Each film is just a series of vignettes with no character growth & a minimal amount of strife enjoyed by the main characters. Boys Town isn't that, though it does threaten to become that in the first half hour focused on Father Flanagan.  Whitey is a lot of things, but consistent is not one of them, and when he comes in, it's clear we'll get a cliched arc, but the film itself is going to be about Whitey's story, making it an easier film to sit through than the Bing Crosby pictures.

That being said, Boys Town isn't particularly good.  Filled with cliches, a lot of it is going to be dependent on how allergic you are to the shoot-for-the-rafters appeal of Mickey Rooney.  Rooney is not an actor that I can really subscribe to.  If you want to use the parlance of current meme culture he "understood the assignment," but only because most films required him to be Mickey Rooney.  There's no part of the film where he isn't playing Rooney, which doesn't really work for Boys Town's street tough.  You won't really buy that Rooney, America's boy next door (and at this point in his career, pretty much exclusively Andy Hardy) is the younger brother of a small-time crook, or that someone so easily bamboozled has an ounce of street smarts.  Rooney gives the film some oxygen, but it's mostly hot air.

That being said, he's considerably more watchable than Spencer Tracy.  I've talked on this blog about my aversion to Tracy before, but I wouldn't really put Rooney & Tracy in the same category of actor.  Rooney always played himself, and I have yet to find the role that feels like he's genuinely stretching himself or adding a new dimension to the part he's playing.  But Spencer Tracy can act, he just usually plays the same version of the same curmudgeon.  Father Flanagan is a kindlier, gentler role for Tracy, but it's also one of the dullest parts I've seen him bring to the screen.  Spencer Tracy is a lot of things, but he's definitely not an actor who lacks stature in his role (I often use the word "sturdy" to describe him), but here Father Flanagan feels flat beyond words.  Tracy has a wry twinkle he can give him, but that's hardly great acting, and it's weird to think a man who would play such a specific type onscreen (and be nominated for nine Oscars in the process) won his second Academy Award for such a nothing performance.

OVP: Babes in Arms (1939)

Film: Babes in Arms (1939)
Stars: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Charles Winninger, Guy Kibbee, June Preisser
Director: Busby Berkeley
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actor-Mickey Rooney, Scoring)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Young Best Actor nominees is not going to be the theme of this week (tomorrow our nominee is in his mid-fifties), but with yesterday's Saturday Night Fever won John Travolta a nomination at the age of only 23, it feels fitting that today we talk about a nominee that was even younger at the Oscars: Mickey Rooney.  Rooney is one of the most famous figures in classic American movies, and lived longer than almost any of his contemporaries, dying at the age of 93.  He is famous both for his stature, and because of his longevity, occasionally for his age, but at one point Rooney was a teen idol, and was the second-youngest Best Actor nominee ever at the age of 19 for today's movie Babes in Arms.  The film teams Rooney with his frequent costar Judy Garland, and like Saturday Night Fever, is another musical.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Joe Moran (Winninger) and his family, including his son Mickey (Rooney).  Moran is a longtime vaudeville hoofer who was once super successful on the stage, but has fallen on hard times as people have moved past vaudeville to movies.  All of the former vaudeville performers live in a neighborhood in the same town, and their children are somewhat ostracized, and considered poorly-taken-care-of by other local parents.  When the kids worry that the parents aren't willing to modernize their show, Mickey and his best girl Patsy (Garland) team up all of their friends to put on a show that might be able to raise the money their parents need to keep their homes/children, and of course while the parents are unsuccessful on the road, the kids put on a bravura performance and win over the town/parents, proving that they have what it takes to be a second generation of stars.

The movie at once is impossible to hate but way too slight to love.  Considering the score and the stars, you'd assume that Babes in Arms would be a timeless seasonal classic, rather than one that is only a classic when it's brought up (rather than instantly name-checked).  The plot is inconsequential to the movie, and the kids always being right (while the parents are always wrong) feels a bit hackneyed even for 1939.  Rooney's performance, in particular, feels too earnest for me.  There's little difference between this and his schtick as Andy Hardy, and it plays like the Oscar nomination (his first of four) was more because MGM wanted to get some sort of adult recognition for one of its most bankable leading men than because he'd earned it with serious talent.  One fun fact-in the film Rooney does (solid) impressions of both Lionel Barrymore and Clark Gable, the latter of whom was favored to beat Rooney at the Oscars that year but didn't when they both lost in a shocker to Robert Donat in Goodbye Mr. Chips.

The film's other nomination is much more earned.  Watching Babes in Arms now, it's really shocking how many of the musical numbers are also songs you hear in Singin in the Rain.  I didn't know this was coming, and was floored when four songs ("Good Morning," "You are My Lucky Star," "Broadway Melody," and "Singin in the Rain") showed up in the film.  I'd fault them for copying the great American musical, but this film came out 13 years before it so it's just ingenuity (and Stanley Donen owes Busby Berkeley a check).  Honestly, while the big ending number is problematic (Rooney & Garland appear in blackface), and a bit hammy, the rest of the musical numbers are a delight, and thus the Scoring nomination feels like an easy pill to swallow, even if Rooney's nomination in 1939 of all years feels wasteful.

Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)

Film: Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)
Stars: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden, Lana Turner, Ann Rutherford
Director: George B. Seitz
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Lana Turner-click here to learn more about Ms. Turner (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Despite urban legend, Lana Turner was not discovered in Schwab's Pharmacy.  The definitive version of how the screen icon was discovered will probably never be definitively known, but we can chart the earlier part of her filmography regardless.  She worked briefly at Warner Brothers, but her career was going nowhere, and so director Mervyn LeRoy, her mentor, brought her with over to MGM with little complaint (akin to the Red Sox trading Babe Ruth, if film fans were akin to such analogies).  While at MGM she got her first real break as a screen actress in the oddest place of all-Love Finds Andy Hardy, a movie that didn't quite catapult her to stardom, but did put her into a newer echelon of actress-someone whom studio executives suddenly knew the name of and wanted to see her stretch in more substantial parts.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film focuses on Andy Hardy (Rooney), an all-American boy who is trying to save up enough money to take his girl Polly (Rutherford) to the dance.  However, when Polly can't go to the dance, Andy still wants to go by himself, and continues saving for the car.  When a friend convinces Andy to date his girlfriend Cynthia (Turner), in hopes of making sure Cynthia isn't swept off-her-feet by other boys, Andy has to trick Polly, a problem that is compounded when it turns out Polly can go to the dance.  Andy thus has to find a way to please both girls, and is aided in this by Betsy (Garland), who is a few years younger than Andy but is terribly smitten with him.  This all happens while Andy's mother (Holden) is off caring for his ailing grandmother, and so for much of the film Andy is being raised by his father Judge Hardy (Stone) and his older sister Marian (Parker)

Love Finds Andy Hardy is an odd film to associate with Lana Turner's eventually sexy, blonde goddess persona for a variety of reasons, but first of all it's a strange picture in general for us to profile here because it's the fourth film in a series of movies I haven't seen any of the other movies.  I normally wouldn't do something like that (I tend to favor seeing the story in the original order), but these serials were so popular in the days before television, and aren't really like the sequels we encounter today.  Instead, they're more like an episode of television, and so checking in on the Hardy family (the series would ultimately have sixteen excursions, as well as a short) seems more like seeing an episode of I Love Lucy or The Dick van Dyke Show out-of-sequence than missing Empire before going into Jedi.

The movie itself is kind of frothy.  This is wholesome family entertainment in a way we'd almost exclusively associate with television (think Ozzie & Harriet or The Donna Reed Show for context), but it's not particularly rapid fire and the jokes are far too genial to be funny years later.  Some of them are a little gross (there's a crack about Andy kissing Polly, even when she doesn't want to, that will have your antennae up pretty quickly), and there's not a lot of great slapstick or sight gags to make these compelling.  That said, it's not a bad movie either.  Rooney is fun as Andy-you see pretty quickly why this series made him a household name, and Garland is winning as Betsy, getting to sing a few ballads and the two have smashing chemistry with each other.  I'm going with 3-stars here because if you don't attach a genre to the movie (like, "comedy," and suddenly expect a laugh riot), it's fun.  It's just not the sort of thing that exists on-screens today where first you pitch the trailer, then the movie.

As for Turner, I'm going to be honest-I'm at a loss how she became a star off of this.  Her part is small, and while she's fun as a girl who will "let you kiss her all she wants" (Turner is basically the "trampy girl" trope where you know she won't end up with sweet-hearted Andy), it's hard to imagine what she'd graduate to just a few short years later.  Turner's so young here (just seventeen), and there are even cracks about the future sex symbol's appearance being less than ideal (particularly about her "red hair")-it's an odd chapter in the career of such a major star, and such a complete departure from what we'd normally associate with her that I'm glad we took this early detour in her career.  Next week, though, we'll get to one of the quintessential Lana Turner roles.

Child Actors and Best Picture

On Thursday of this week we'll see a host of some of the luckiest and happiest people in Hollywood (and an equally large number of people who will be grumbling and firing their agents) as the Oscar nominations will be announced.  In honor of this, we'll be looking at three articles of Oscar trivia heading up to this most blessed of days, starting with our first one today, regarding (as the title would suggest) child actors and Best Picture.

Everyone is aware that it's quite unusual to be nominated before the age of 18 if you're an actor.  In fact, throughout the Academy's entire history only 18 people have done it.  However, it's also quite difficult to land a role in two different Best Picture nominations before you hit 18.  While many well-known actors eventually gain roles in a Best Picture nominee or two, doing so before you've reached adulthood is extremely difficult.  This year, Daniel Huttlestone may well join in on such a list.  Huttlestone, for those who are not having any lights go off when I type that name, played Gavroche in Les Miserables two years ago and is now Jack in Into the Woods, which is right at the edge of many people's Best Picture predictions.  Were he to do this, he would join a very select group of people who have accomplished such a feat.

I will note that the list below of ten actors that have done this is probably not conclusive, but it's the best I could do after a massive search through the chasms of Wikipedia.  If you know any other actors, please share them in the comments and you will have both my gratitude and cited credit after I edit the post to include your factoid.  Until then, however, here are ten actors that have all had two Best Picture nominees released before they turned eighteen (in alphabetical order).

Freddie Bartholomew (1924-1992)

First Best Picture: David Copperfield (1935), where he played the title character
Second Best Picture: Captains Courageous (1937), where he played Harvey Cheyne and somehow got top-billing over Spencer Tracy
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 4812 days (13 years, 2 months, 3 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: No, despite the Juvenile Oscar being an option at the time and him being arguably one of the biggest Box Office draws of the 1930's, he never won an Oscar.
Other Best Picture Nominees: None-Bartholomew's career would go heavily down-the-tubes when he hit adulthood, and he would have a series of financial and personal problems for the rest of his life.

Jackie Cooper (1922-2011)

First Best Picture: Skippy (1931), where he played the title character
Second Best Picture: The Champ (1931), where he played Dink and got second billing to Wallace Beery, who won the Oscar.
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 3342 days (9 years, 1 month, 25 days), which is the youngest any actor has ever achieved such a feat to date.
Oscar-Nominated?: Yes-Cooper became the youngest person in Oscar history to be nominated for Best Actor, though he lost to Lionel Barrymore who was 44 years his senior.
Other Best Picture Nominees: None, though he would go on to have a significant role in the Superman movies as Perry White.

Deanna Durbin (1921-2013)

First Best Picture: Three Smart Girls (1936), where she played Penny Craig
Second Best Picture: One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937), where she plays Patsy Cardwell
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 5754 days (15 years, 9 months, 1 day)
Oscar-Nominated?: Deanna Durbin, the girl who saved Universal Studios from declaring bankruptcy, won a Juvenile Oscar in 1938 after being one of the country's biggest box office draws for several years.
Other Best Picture Nominees: Nope-Durbin enjoyed strong success in her late teens and early twenties (she was the second highest-salaried woman in the United States in 1946, second only to Bette Davis), but eventually audiences waned and she become something of a recluse despite truly magnificent roles being offered to her like the leads in Kiss Me Kate and My Fair Lady on Broadway.

Elle Fanning (1998-Present)

First Best Picture: Babel (2006), where she played the daughter of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett
Second Best Picture: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), where she once again starred opposite Pitt and Blanchett, playing a younger version of the latter.
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 3913 days (10 years, 8 months, 16 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: Not yet-neither she nor her sister have been nominated, though it sort of feels like one of them might strike eventually.
Other Best Picture Nominees: None to speak of, though she has a lead role in Maleficent this past year which could score a few nominations on Thursday.

Bonita Granville (1923-1988)

First Best Picture: Cavalcade (1933), where she played Young Fanny (Cavalcade is one of the few films profiled here that actually won the Best Picture trophy)
Second Best Picture: Little Women (1933), where Granville gets an uncredited role as a classmate of Amy's.
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 3940 days (10 years, 9 months, 14 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: Yes, Granville would go on to be one of the youngest Oscar nominees ever in 1936 when she was cited for These Three in the first year that Best Supporting Actress was a category (though she lost to Gale Sondergaard in Anthony Adverse).
Other Best Picture Nominees: None, though she had to have gotten close with Now, Voyager in 1942.

Roddy McDowall (1928-1998)

First Best Picture: How Green Was My Valley (1941), where he plays Huw, Maureen O'Hara's younger brother in the film that famously beat Citizen Kane for the Best Picture trophy.
Second Best Picture: The Pied Piper (1942), a largely forgotten film from 20th Century FOX where McDowall plays a character named Ronnie
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 5086 days (13 years, 11 months, 4 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: No, though he came extraordinarily close in 1963.  A mix-up when FOX was submitting for lead vs. supporting for Cleopatra caused McDowall, who was personally popular and just had received a Golden Globe nomination, to be submitted as lead when he was clearly supporting.  Had that not happened, he probably would have gotten his sole Oscar nod, and perhaps even beaten Melvyn Douglas in Hud.
Other Best Picture Nominees: For the first time, yes!  McDowall stayed active for most of his life, and went on to star in two Best Picture nominees: The Longest Day (1962) and Cleopatra (1963).

Haley Joel Osment (1988-Present)

First Best Picture: Forrest Gump (1994), where Osment played the title character's son (the film went on to win Best Picture)
Second Best Picture: The Sixth Sense (1999), where Osment became a star by seeing dead people.
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 4131 days (11 years, 3 months, 23 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: Yes, Osment became one of the youngest nominees ever when he landed a nomination for playing Cole in The Sixth Sense, though he lost the award to Michael Caine in The Cider House Rules.
Other Best Picture Nominees: None to speak of, though I've always thought he gave an Oscar-worthy piece of work in AI and he's apparently quite funny in The Spoils of Babylon.

Mickey Rooney (1920-2014)

First Best Picture: A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), where Rooney played Puck opposite the likes of Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland, and Anita Louise
Second Best Picture: Boys Town (1938), though unlike with Captains Courageous Spencer Tracy got top-billing here.
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 6560 days (17 years, 11 months, 17 days)-Mickey makes this list by just under two weeks.
Oscar-Nominated?: Rooney is by far the biggest star on this list, and went on to win a Juvenile Award in 1938 (alongside Deanna Durbin), as well as four Oscar nominations.  Two were as a lead: Babes in Arms in 1939 (losing to Robert Donat) and The Human Comedy in 1943 (losing to Paul Lukas) and two in supporting: The Bold and the Brave in 1956 (losing to Anthony Quinn) and The Black Stallion in 1979 (losing to Melvyn Douglas).  Rooney won an Honorary Oscar at the 1982 Oscars as well.
Other Best Picture Nominees: Rooney made so many movies I may have missed one, but by my count the only other Best Picture nominee he was in was The Human Comedy in 1943.

Quvenzhane Wallis (2003-Present)

First Best Picture: Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), where she played the main character of Hushpuppy
Second Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave (2013), where she had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it role as Solomon Northup's daughter (the film of course won Best Picture)
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 3655 days (10 years, 2 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: Wallis received an Oscar nomination and became the youngest person ever nominated for Best Actress with Beasts of the Southern Wild but lost to Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook.
Other Best Picture Nominees: None so far, but she may well win a Golden Globe tonight, as she's nominated for Annie.

Virginia Weidler (1927-1968)

First Best Picture: All This and Heaven Too (1940), where she plays one of Charles Boyer's daughters
Second Best Picture: The Philadelphia Story (1940), where she plays the younger sister of Kate Hepburn and has a very memorable turn on the piano.
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 5029 days (13 years, 9 months, 5 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: Nope, and she also missed out on the Juvenile Award despite no one winning it in 1940 and she being a prime contender considering she had two roles in Best Picture nominees.
Other Best Picture Nominees: None-Weidler largely retired and became extremely private (in a similar fashion to Deanna Durbin), never doing interviews after her retirement at the age of sixteen.

And there you have it folks-feeling a bit unaccomplished?  Do you think that Daniel Huttlestone will be able to join this list on Thursday, or will Into the Woods remain at-large?  Which of these actors was the most surprising?  And if you have any others, please let me know and I will credit you in the article!

AFI's 25 Greatest Actors, Part 4

This article is part of a 15-Year Anniversary series commemorating the American Film Institute’s 25 Greatest Stars.  For the Actresses, click the numbers for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.  For the Actors, click the numbers for Parts 1, 2, and 3.

We've now gone through all of the actors that were on the list of the 25 greatest from the AFI.  A crowning achievement, to say the least.  And yet, don't you feel like a few names were missing?  Like I did with the actresses (click through all of the links above if you're catching up, as there's been a lot of discussion centering around this conversation), I thought it was appropriate to chronicle ten superstars of the era who probably just missed the cut.  These ten men were the closest in my opinion (if you disagree, click on the comments below):

Montgomery Clift (1920-1966)

Oscar Nominations: 4 nominations, though he would never win an Academy Award during his short but celebrated career.
Why He Was Close to the List: Montgomery Clift was one of the first leading men to really be emotional or sensitive onscreen.  Paving the way for the likes of James Dean and Marlon Brando (and people like Ryan Gosling and James Franco today), he was intensely beautiful, but also someone with a secret, an introvert with something to tell.  He probably is still referenced so often today not just because of his tragic life and his closeted homosexuality (the gays are taking over this list, for the record-he's not the only one that I'm name-checking), but because his acting style is far more utilized by today's leading men and women than that of Bogie or John Wayne.  He was a pioneer of the hidden emotion.
Why He Missed: Clift's career never fully recovered after his near-fatal car accident in 1956, when his emotional state (already a bit damaged) and his physical appearance became altered and deteriorated quickly as a result.  Consequently, his filmography is impressive but quite brief, costing him against someone as prolific as Edward G. Robinson or Robert Mitchum.
My Favorite Performance: Looking through, I've actually seen almost all of Clift's films (I didn't realize this, but I have well over 50%, better than any other actor we've profiled, male or female, except for James Dean).  I will go with his sensational work in A Place in the Sun, where he plays a social-climber who wants nothing more than to leave his past where it is, but cannot escape it.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: As I said, I've seen most everything.  I'll go with Hitchcock's I Confess as I'm curious to see what Hitch does with an actor that he knew was gay off-screen (Hitchcock was pretty good about the gay allegory and worked it well with Anthony Perkins).

Bing Crosby (1903-1977)

Oscar Nominations: Crosby received three nominations in his career, winning for Best Actor for Going My Way.
Why He Was Close to the List: Crosby's stature in the film community is still recognized today, particularly with his work in Holiday Inn and White Christmas (it helps when you star in a holiday classic-take note actors wanting longevity).  Crosby's vocal prowess and singing ability was legendary, and his many films with Bob Hope are still remembered to this day.
Why He Missed: A couple of reasons.  For starters, like Hope, his principle fame didn't seem to just be from the cinema, but instead from a different format (for Hope, it was stand-up and television, for Crosby, it was music).  It appears that most of the actors listed by the AFI are chiefly famous for their on-screen ability (only Judy Garland really made the crossover to another medium with an equal level of success).  There's also the little factor that Crosby's reputation has taken a severe downturn since his death due to his parenting skills and bizarre will (much like Joan Crawford's, an actress who probably could have made it to the Top 8 had it not been for Mommie Dearest).
My Favorite Performance: Unlike Clift, I don't love Crosby in quite the same way (I always found Bing a bit stiff onscreen) and so I'll go with a personal favorite from childhood in White Christmas.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: In one of those rare situations where I haven't seen a Best Picture winner (I've seen over 80% of them), I've never seen Going My Way, which would need to be at the top of the list.

Errol Flynn (1909-1959)

Oscar Nominations: Flynn never received an Oscar nomination or win in his career, a stunning bit of news considering how long he was a Box Office draw.
Why He Was Close to the List: Flynn lives on today as a swashbuckler par excellence.  His name conjures images of dashing technicolor and elaborate sword battles.  It helps when you're creating an on-screen persona if you have one that no one else has ever had or can imitate, and that was the case with Flynn, who was a cad but one that you rooted for onscreen.
Why He Missed: Flynn doesn't have a particularly large list of easily-recognizable classics in his oeuvre, with the obvious exception being The Adventures of Robin Hood.  His extremely questionable relationship with Beverly Aadland (when she was just fifteen) further damaged his reputation in Hollywood, which was already pretty badly damaged from years of pretty open philandering (he reportedly romanced Marlene Dietrich and Delores del Rio while married).
My Favorite Performance: I'm not going to embarrass myself here.  I've seen a spattering of Flynn films, but none of note, and none that I'm going to claim as a favorite for such a legendary actor.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: Clearly I've got my work cut out for me (there's a chance you do too if my theories about his filmography are to be believed).  Together we can make a point of hitting The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, and The Sea Hawk.

Charlton Heston (1923-2008)

Oscar Nominations: Heston received only one Oscar nomination in his career, but he won for it in Ben-Hur.  He also received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1978.
Why He Was Close to the List: Heston was one of the biggest and most recognizable stars of the 1950's, frequently leading his way through biblical epics like El Cid, Ben-Hur, and in particular The Ten Commandments that are still watched heavily today (most of these films you can catch on Turner Classic Movies during Easter).  He also made Planet of the Apes late in the 1960's, adding another classic to his list of motion pictures.  All-in-all, there is no one else in the history of the movies that quite had the stature and heroic gravitas that Heston did onscreen (for those unfamiliar with his onscreen work-and for the love of pete, please change that-Russell Crowe in Gladiator probably comes the closest), and with the shift toward more relatable heroes, we probably won't see another one ever again.
Why He Missed: While with Flynn and Crosby I think part of their miss on the list came from their offscreen behavior, I'm utterly confident that Heston's was a result of that as his filmography is too big to ignore otherwise.  Heston's neoconservative beliefs and in particular his strong advocacy for the National Rifle Association alienated him from a generation of moviegoers and bitterly divided public opinion on him, an opinion that only got worse in the years following the creation of this list (particularly after Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine was released).
My Favorite Performance: I genuinely loved Ben-Hur and think that it's an epic masterpiece, but Heston was better in Touch of Evil, where he has to match wits with Orson Welles and watches his entire world slowly deteriorate.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've seen the Big Five films from Heston (all name-checked above), so I'll go with The Agony and the Ecstasy, an adaptation of the Irving Stone novel where Heston plays Michelangelo.

Rock Hudson (1925-1985)

Oscar Nominations: Hudson received one Academy Award nomination in 1956 for Giant (he lost to Yul Brynner).
Why He Was Close to the List: Hudson's fame comes from two different places.  First was his acting in the 1950's and 1960's in larger-than-life roles romancing Elizabeth Taylor and most frequently Doris Day (he later enjoyed success on television opposite Susan Saint James in McMillan & Wife).  The second source of his fame surrounded his personal life (he was one of the very first major stars in Hollywood to come out as gay) and his bringing AIDS to light in a major way to the public (Hudson ended up dying from the disease, but his admission that he had AIDS was a hugely influential point in the AIDS awareness movement considering now everyone in America knew someone who had the disease).
Why He Missed: Hudson's fame at this point is almost entirely surrounding his sexuality and his association with AIDS.  His filmography hosts films like Giant and Pillow Talk, but it's not really large enough to compete with someone like John Wayne or Kirk Douglas who enjoyed decades of hits and significant movies.  Also, Hudson suffers a bit from that stereotype that pretty men can't act (don't believe this is a stereotype?  Compare the Best Actor lineup to the Best Actress lineup in any given year and tell me I'm wrong).
My Favorite Performance: I love Hudson as the hunky fake Texan in Pillow Talk, where he manages to be both charming and incredibly sexy while wooing Doris Day.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: Like Clift, I've seen most of Rock Hudson's most significant films. I'll probably pick Ice Station Zebra (which plays constantly on Turner Classic Movies), one of his last major hits.

Charles Laughton (1899-1962)

Oscar Nominations: Laughton earned three Oscar nominations during his career, winning for The Private Life of Henry VIII.
Why He Was Close to the List: One of the great Shakespearean and theater actors, Laughton commanded major respect on the screen in almost everything he did (for those unfamiliar with his persona, think Philip Seymour Hoffman meets Laurence Olivier, with a bit of homosexuality for flavoring).  He brought a theatrical sense to the screen, and had the good sense to play in large epics during most of his career, meaning that his filmography is spattered with major classics from Mutiny on the Bounty to The Hunchback of Notre Dame to Witness for the Prosecution.
Why He Missed: Laughton never quite had THAT film to claim as his own.  All of those films are bona fide classics, but they aren't classics you instantly think of when discussing the term.  As a result, you end up with someone similar to Myrna Loy for the ladies-when you mention them as a candidate for a greatest stars list, you say "of course!" but they don't spring to mind unprompted.
My Favorite Performance: I'm going to cheat here, as I've missed most of Laughton's most significant acting work and don't want to embarrass myself, so I'll go with his sole directorial effort in The Night of the Hunter.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: If I cannot find a favorite performance that means another marathon list, so we'll put the four films I listed above along with Spartacus and Captain Kidd and make up for lost time.

Steve McQueen (1930-1980)

Oscar Nominations: McQueen received just one Oscar nomination in his career, for 1966's The Sand Pebbles.
Why He Was Close to the List: What James Dean was to the 1950's, Steve McQueen was to the 1960's.  McQueen was a devilishly handsome daredevil who played by his own rules and frequently romanced some of the leading ladies of his day (including Ali McGraw) and played rebellious, modern roles like that of Frank Bullitt in Bullitt, one of his most noted pictures.  His death at only age fifty added a mystique to McQueen's already enormous aura.
Why He Missed: Two reasons: one, McQueen's partying and racecar-driving caused him to miss out on a huge number of classic films, and as a result his filmography is much slimmer than most of the men listed here.  Secondly McQueen was more of an actor that was famous in the 1960's, considerably later than Hollywood's Golden Age and is more in-line with the likes of Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, and Paul Newman, though his early death occasionally groups him with the stars of an earlier era.
My Favorite Performance: I have always enjoyed him as the totally crushable Rocky in the (admittedly dated, but still enjoyable) Love with the Proper Stranger.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've never seen McQueen in Bullitt, a genre of film that isn't really my cup of tea, but clearly is one that I should hit sooner rather than later regardless of the film subject.

Anthony Quinn (1915-2001)

Oscar Nominations: Quinn received four Academy Award nods in his career, winning twice for Supporting Actor in Viva Zapata! and Lust for Life.
Why He Was Close to the List: Quinn was one of those actors that everyone deeply admired for his tenacity onscreen and his thespian chops.  Though he starred in very few major films (outside of a supporting role in Lawrence of Arabia), he, like Spencer Tracy, was an actor who carefully selected projects that would enjoy prestige and acclaim from critics, audiences, and awards' bodies.  It also helps that he worked for decades, right up until his death, giving multiple generations a chance to see his work in a theater.
Why He Missed: I touched on it, but Quinn never broke out in a specific role like other actors did.  His most famous part would be Zorba the Greek, but that's not a film a number of people see today.  He's well-respected, but not someone who survives in a memorable way in films since then (he also did a number of supporting parts, which may have cost him considering how headliner-heavy the AFI was in creating this list).
My Favorite Performance: It's been years since I saw it, but I have to imagine that Zorba the Greek will age pretty well if I ever re-visit it in the upcoming years, so I'll go with that for Quinn.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've seen neither of his two Oscar-winning roles (though oddly enough I've seen both of the films he lost the Oscar for).

Mickey Rooney (1920-2014)

Oscar Nominations: Rooney received four competitive Academy Award nominations in his career, but won for none of them.  He did win a Juvenile Oscar in 1939 along with Deanna Durbin and then won an Honorary Oscar in 1983 for life achievement.
Why He Was Close to the List: He was the top box office draw of 1939 and 1940!  Okay, that's a joke that has frequently been thrown out (I don't know why Rooney in particular gets hammered with swipes in that regard).  He was clearly a very popular entertainer (his fellow actors adored him), and his star endured for decades (his career ended up spanning over ninety years), ending only this past year with his death.  He is one of those rare actors who did musicals, dramatic pictures, silent films, child star to aging grandpa-he was one of a kind.
Why He Missed: His onscreen (and offscreen) persona was an acquired taste, and one that not everyone was a fan of, quite frankly.  He was a very good actor, though, and I think if this list had been made a decade later, seeing that Rooney would still be working and would become one of the final links to Hollywood's Golden Era, he probably would have made the cut.
My Favorite Performance: I'm going to cheat here, but not in the way that I did with Laughton.  I'm going to pick Rooney's terrific solo effort on The Twilight Zone in "The Last Night of the Jockey"-if you want proof the man could act, here's a fine place to start.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I could go with one of the Oscar-nominated roles, but I'll instead go with some of the Andy Hardy pictures, getting a view of what Rooney truly became famous for (he made fifteen of these pictures in the days before television).

Peter Sellers (1925-1980)

Oscar Nominations: Sellers received two Oscar nominations for acting, for Dr. Strangelove and Being There, losing for both.  He also was nominated for his Live Action Short Film The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film, which he also lost the trophy for.
Why He Was Close to the List: Sellers has long enjoyed an enduring fame, particularly amongst comedians, as one of the pioneers of the art form.  Think of how Steve Martin is revered amongst almost all comics now as being a true pioneer and artist-that's largely what Peter Sellers was in his era.  He also starred in Dr. Strangelove in not one but three roles, a comic triumph any actor would be envious of achieving.
Why He Missed: Sellers, like Steve McQueen, enjoyed his principle fame in later years, particularly the 1960's and 1970's, and as a result may not have felt like an appropriate choice for the "Golden Age Stars" list.  He was also very difficult to work with and very reclusive in his personal life, adding mystique but less public consciousness as a result.
My Favorite Performance: Only a fool wouldn't pick his comedic triumph in Dr. Strangelove, one of the most biting, provocative, and cutting films ever made, and Sellers is a key reason for all of that.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've never seen Sellers in his last great film role, that of Chance Gardner in Being There with Shirley MacLaine (who, contrary to some opinions of Sellers, thoroughly enjoyed working with him).

And there are my hunches as to the ten men who just missed the AFI list-what are your guesses?  Who do you think was the closest (my gut is Heston)?  Who are your favorites?  Who did I forget from the just misses?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Deanna Durbin (1921-2013) and the History of the Juvenile Oscars

This past week Deanna Durbin, Universal's girl-next-door, passed away at the age of 91.  Durbin is probably not well-known to today's movie audiences, but in her time she was a huge star.  Her movies even saved Universal Studios from declaring bankruptcy.

As a result of this, she won a special Juvenile Academy Award in 1938, the second person to win the award (the picture to the left is Durbin with her trophy).  At the time, the Oscars didn't generally recognize childhood performances in competitive categories, and so from 1934 to 1960, twelve individuals received Juvenile Academy Awards.  While there are only twelve (the same number as the number of men who have walked on the move-coincidence?...probably), and the last award was presented over sixty years ago, thanks to the young ages of many of the recipients, a number of these men and women are still alive, and in honor Deanna Durbin, I thought it would be fun to check to see what happened to each of them in the years that followed.

Shirley Temple
Born 1928 (still living)
Won in 1934

Temple, one of the biggest stars in the history of cinema, and probably the most well-known child actor of all-time, was a surefire winner in 1934.  After becoming the biggest Box Office draw in America, she slowly saw her popularity decline as she entered adulthood.  She, did, however, enjoy one of the oddest second acts in Hollywood, becoming a U.S. Ambassador to both Ghana and Ireland, and racking up a myriad of accolades to go with her Oscar, including the Kennedy Center Honor, the SAG Life Achievement Award, and the National Board of Review Career Achievement Award.

Deanna Durbin
Born 1921 (died in 2013 at 91)
Won in 1938

As mentioned before, Durbin won at the height of her fame as America's girl-next-door.  Like Temple, she couldn't find as much work in the years that followed, and eventually retired in 1949.  She was frequently asked to return to the screen, but spent the rest of her life in Paris, living a deeply private life with her husband and two children.

Mickey Rooney
Born 1920 (still living)
Won in 1938

The girl-next-door needed the boy next door to go with her, and so Mickey Rooney picked up the first Oscar of his career in 1938 as well.  It's hard to believe since he's been such a parody of himself in the years since, but at the time he was headlining the Andy Hardy movies and playing opposite Judy Garland (as well as Spencer Tracy in 1938's Boys Town).  Rooney received an Oscar nomination the next year for Babes in Arms and four years later for The Human Comedy.  After serving during World War II, he returned to Hollywood and enjoyed fame in film and television, receiving Oscar nominations for 1956's The Bold and the Brave and 1979's The Black Stallion.  He became the only Juvenile Oscar winner to win a second trophy in 1983, another Honorary Academy Award.

Judy Garland
Born 1922 (died in 1969 at 47)
Won in 1939

Is there a star that burned as brightly and fell as far as Judy Garland?  Judy received her Oscar after one of the biggest years of her career, with The Wizard of Oz and Babes in Arms (her costar Mickey Rooney gave her a kiss on Oscar night, as seen in the photo to the left) both tearing up the Box Office.  Garland would of course go on to be the ultimate comeback kid several more times in her career, gaining two Oscar nominations for A Star is Born (losing in one of the closest Oscar races ever against Grace Kelly) and Judgment at Nuremberg, and giving one of the most lauded performances in the history of entertainment at Carnegie Hall in 1961.  She died from an overdose of barbiturates in 1969.

Margaret O'Brien
Born 1937 (still living)
Won in 1944

Following in Judy's footsteps (career-wise), O'Brien won the Juvenile Oscar five years after Garland, primarily for starring opposite her in Meet Me in St. Louis.  O'Brien couldn't cut it as an adult star, and only made occasional appearances on the silver screen in the later years.  There's a great story about O'Brien's Oscar, which had been stolen by a maid in the 1950's, finally returning to her in 1995 after being found at a flea market.

Peggy Ann Garner
Born 1932 (died in 1984 at 52)
Won in 1945

The brilliant young performer from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn won right after O'Brien, and gave one of the best performances to be honored for this award (though I haven't seen them all, Garner is one of the few I would have nominated in the competitive awards).  Like almost everyone on this list, Garner was unable to break-out into adult film roles, though she did feature in Robert Altman's movie A Wedding in 1978.  She passed away from pancreatic cancer at age 52.

Claude Jarman, Jr.
Born 1934 (still living)
Won in 1946

Jarman won this award after his film debut, The Yearling, a film that scored seven nominations in 1946 and could have probably made it eight if Jarman didn't have this avenue to win his award (he was the Hailee Steinfeld of his day).  Headlining a Best Picture for your debut film typically means that you're destined to fall a bit, and Jarman's career was quickly over.  Interesting side note though-he ended up having seven children in three marriages, so yeah, that's a lot of kids.

Ivan Jandl
Born 1937 (died in 1987 at 50)
Won in 1948

Jandl also won his Oscar for his screen debut, starring opposite Montgomery Clift in The Search (he's so adorable in this movie-prepare to say "awe" multiple times).  Jandl was from the Czech Republic and didn't speak English, so he learned his lines phonetically.  While he made other films in the Czech Republic, this was his one and only American film (though once you've starred opposite Monty Clift, where else is there to go?).

Bobby Driscoll
Born 1937 (died in 1968 at 31)
Won in 1949

Like Judy, Bobby Driscoll had a pretty horrible life, but unlike Judy, he didn't remain in the spotlight throughout all of it (and it was decidedly shorter).  Driscoll was rumored for this award for his performance in Song of the South (as was his costar Luana Patten), but didn't win until three years later for his work in So Dear My Heart and The Window (you can see him receiving the award to the left from Donald O'Connor).  Driscoll was a huge star in his youth, and also made films like Treasure Island and was the voice of Disney's Peter Pan.  His career started to go south as an adult, however, and he eventually fell into the world of drugs and crumbling marriages.  He oddly got involved with Andy Warhol's Factory for a time in the 1960's, before becoming homeless and dying from drug-related heart failure.  As a sign of his fallen stature, it wasn't until over three years after his death that it was announced to the public, despite his Oscar-winning status.

Jon Whiteley
Born 1945 (still living)
Won in 1954

Also a young actor whose career petered out as he grew up, Jon Whiteley's life has had a much happier ending.  After winning for The Young Kidnappers (along with his costar Vincent Winter), Whiteley appeared in a couple of films before quitting the business all-together.  He went on to become a well-known art historian at Oxford, and to be happily married with two children.

Vincent Winter
Born 1947 (died in 1998 at 50)
Won in 1954

The second-youngest of all of the winners (after Temple), Winter was only seven when he won along with his costar for The Little Kidnappers, and is chronologically the youngest of all of the winners, despite another star winning six years later.  Winter also had a relatively happy adult life.  After moving away from the front of the camera in his early years, he went on to be a production manager on a number of high-profile films, regularly working with Steven Spielberg in the 1980's.  He passed away from a heart attack at age 50.

Hayley Mills
Born 1946 (still living)
Won in 1960

The daughter of the great British actor John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, acting was in the blood for Hayley Mills, one of the few child actors to rival Shirley Temple in her popularity, and therefore a perfect bookend for the awards.  Mills won her Oscar for her work in Pollyanna, a huge commercial success, and went on to have a string of hits with Disney, including The Parent Trap, That Darn Cat, and The Moon Spinners.  While she had one big hit out the gate from Disney (The Trouble with Angels), her film career petered out and she largely left the film industry, only to return in the 1980's with work in television, most notably Good Morning, Miss Bliss, a short-lived series that nonetheless spawned the massively successful Saved by the Bell.  In an interesting side note, at the height of her fame, she was offered the title role in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita, though Walt Disney insisted the role wasn't appropriate for her image, and the part went to Sue Lyon.

And those are the twelve winners.  Interestingly enough, despite the award being an option at the time, the Oscars still nominated a few child actors during this time period, including Bonita Granville, Brandon deWilde, Sal Mineo, and Patty McCormack (all of whom lost their competitive Oscars).  This all changed when Patty Duke pulled off the trophy for 1962's The Miracle Worker, and with proof that child actors could win the competitive Academy Award, the Oscars stopped giving out the Juvenile Oscar.  Since then, two actors under eighteen have won the award (Tatum O'Neal and Anna Paquin), and a myriad of actors have received nominations, including Jodie Foster, Abigail Breslin, and last year's Quvenzhane Wallis.