Elder Oscar Night

During the past two months, there have been the Golden Globes, the SAG Awards and some other show biz awards, but those are all dress rehearsals for the “really big show”, the biggest celebrity bash of the award season – the Oscars, more formally known as Academy Awards which will be broadcast on Sunday night, 25 February.

What makes the ceremony worthy of mention this year at Time Goes By is that the Best Actress nominee list is dominated by old ladies:

Meryl Streep, 57, for The Devil Wears Prada
Helen Mirren, 61, for The Queen
Judi Dench, 72, for Notes on a Scandal

Their rivals for the coveted statue, Penelope Cruz and Kate Winslet, are both 32.

Although the Best Actor category is not top-heavy with elder actors, it is nice to note that Peter O’Toole, age 74, has been nominated for his role in Venus which Susan Harris of Takoma Gardener reviewed for Time Goes By not long ago.

All three elder best actress nominees are so talented, so accomplished and have given so much pleasure over the years in the roles they have portrayed that it makes no difference, really, which one wins. But for the sake of elderhood and upholding the belief that practice and experience still stand for something, it would be good for one of the old ladies to win tomorrow night.

That doesn’t mean Ms. Cruz and Ms. Winslet are not good at what they do; undoubtedly all five nominees are worthy of the award. But tradition dictates that only one be chosen.

Few elders have won Oscars. Groucho Marx was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at age 83. The oldest “real” winners were George Burns and Jessica Tandy who each won at age 80, and Ms. Tandy was nominated again, although she did not win, at age 82 for Fried Green Tomatoes.

Although winning matters plenty to actors, it doesn’t make much difference the culture except for one small thing: a win, particularly by Helen Mirren or Judi Dench, would for a short while spotlight a terrific elder role model and we don’t have many of those.

As for the youngest of the three elders, Ms. Streep - well, this is her 14th nomination and could be her third win. There is no doubt that she would be a gracious loser to either of the other two stellar actresses. My hope is on one of them.