Sunday, March 07, 2010

30 LGBT Oscar Nominated Roles In 40 Years

Since the Stonewall riots of 1969, 30 men and women have been nominated for an Academy Award for playing LGBT on film. In anticipation of this Sunday’s Oscars, The Advocate takes a look back at these superb, often career-making performances.
1971
Peter Finch
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Sunday Bloody Sunday
Role: Dr. Daniel Hirsh, who is competing with a woman for the affections of a bisexual artist.
1975
Al Pacino
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Dog Day Afternoon
Role: Sonny Wortzik, a man who robs a bank to pay for his male lover’s gender-reassignment surgery.
1975
Chris Sarandon
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Dog Day Afternoon
Role: Leon Shermer, a pre-op trans woman who is in love with a bank robber.
1977
Marcello Mastroianni
Best Actor in a Leading Role, A Special Day
Role: Gabriele, a gay man repulsed by fascism who strikes up a friendship with a neighbor (Sophia Loren) on the day Hitler travels to Rome to meet with Mussolini in 1938.
1981
James Coco
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Only When I Laugh
Role: Jimmy Perino, a gay theater actor relegated to supporting roles in off-off-Broadway shows.
1982
John Lithgow
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, The World According to Garp
Role: Roberta Muldoon, a transsexual ex-football player who becomes best friends with Garp (Robin Williams).
1982
Robert Preston
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Victor/Victoria
Role: Carroll “Toddy” Todd, owner of a tawdry nightclub who poses as struggling female impersonator Victoria’s (Julie Andrews) gay lover.
1983
Cher
Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Silkwood
Role: Dolly Pelliker, the lesbian best friend and coworker of plutonium plant whistle-blower Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep). 1985
William Hurt
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Kiss of the Spider Woman
Role: Luis Molina, a man in prison for having sex with an underage boy. Hurt won the Oscar for his work. 1990
Bruce Davison
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Longtime Companion
Role: David, an affluent gay man living in New York in the 1980s, who loses his lover to AIDS.
1991
Tommy Lee Jones
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, JFK
Role: Clay Shaw, a New Orleans businessman who is sleeping with a male hustler (Kevin Bacon) and is alleged to have participated in the conspiracy to assassinate JFK.
1992
Jaye Davidson
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, The Crying Game
Role (SPOILER ALERT): Dil, the girlfriend of a murdered British soldier who, in the film’s big reveal, turns out to be a man. 1993
Tom Hanks
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Philadelphia
Role: Andrew Beckett, a gay lawyer who successfully sues his former employer in one of the first AIDS discrimination suits. Hanks won the Oscar for his work
1997
Greg Kinnear
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, As Good as It Gets
Role: Simon Bishop, a gay artist who forms an unlikely bond with his homophobic neighbor (Jack Nicholson).1998
Ian McKellen
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Gods and Monsters
Role: James Whale, the gay director of Frankenstein who befriends (and ultimately becomes obsessed with) his gardener (Brendan Fraser).
1998
Kathy Bates
Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Primary Colors
Role: Libby Holden, a nutty campaign adviser to a fictional presidential candidate based on Bill Clinton (John Travolta).
1999
Hilary Swank
Best Actress in a Leading Role, Boys Don't Cry
Role: Brandon Teena, a trans man who was raped and murdered by his friends after they found out he was born female. Swank won the Oscar for her work.
2000
Javier Bardem
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Before Night Falls
Role: Reinaldo Arenas, a Cuban poet and novelist who is imprisoned for being gay. 2002
Ed Harris
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, The Hours
Role: Richard Brown, a writer dying of AIDS struggling to stay alive for a dinner party his friend Clarissa (Meryl Streep) is throwing in his honor.
2002
Nicole Kidman
Best Actress in a Leading Role, The Hours
Role: Novelist Virginia Woolf, who was known for her many relationships with women; the film chronicles her life and eventual suicide. Kidman won the Oscar for her work.
2002
Julianne Moore
Best Actress in a Supporting Role, The Hours
Role: Laura Brown, a deeply unhappy suburban housewife on the verge of suicide, who has feelings for women.
2003
Charlize Theron
Best Actress in a Leading Role, Monster
Role: Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute and rape victim turned serial killer who nonetheless finds love with Selby (Christina Ricci). Theron won the Oscar for her work2005
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Capote
Role: Truman Capote, the flamboyant gay author of the best-selling true-crime book In Cold Blood. Hoffman won the Oscar for his work.
2005
Felicity Huffman
Best Actress in a Leading Role, Transamerica
Role: Bree Osbourne, a pre-op trans woman who goes on a road trip with her long-lost son (Kevin Zegers).
2005
Heath Ledger
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Brokeback Mountain
Role: Ennis Del Mar, a ranch hand who falls in love and carries on a secret relationship with a rodeo cowboy (Jake Gyllenhaal).
2005
Jake Gyllenhaal
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Brokeback Mountain
Role: Jack Twist, a rodeo cowboy who falls in love and carries on a secret relationship with ranch hand Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger).
2006
Judi Dench
Best Actress in a Leading Role, Notes on a Scandal
Role: Barbara Covett, a bitter schoolteacher who forms an unhealthy obsession with a new young art instructor (Cate Blanchett).
2008
Sean Penn
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Milk
Role: Harvey Milk, the San Francisco politician who kick-started the city’s gay rights movement before being assassinated in 1978. Penn won the Oscar for his work.
2008
Penélope Cruz
Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Role: Maria Elena, a mentally unbalanced woman who, with her ex-husband (Javier Bardem), takes a lover (Scarlett Johansson).
2009
Colin Firth
Best Actor in a Leading Role, A Single Man
Role: George Falconer, a gay British university professor struggling to find his way after the death of his lover (Matthew Goode).

5 comments:

  1. it's a lot, wish there could be more

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  2. Great walk down Memory Lane, Bob. There are a few of these movies I haven't seen, am now am curious to see them.
    Thanks for this reminiscence.

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  3. What a great list! Thanks for sharing that.

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  4. Leave it too you to put this together! Thank you! While I have seen most of these movies, and all the performances were good ones, Bruce Davidson I feel gave one of the best. I just think of his role and get chill bumps and tears! Happy Oscar night Bob!

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  5. Obviously a little late in reading but cool post. There are two films on the list I have not seen. Thanks

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