The 68th Academy Awards were held on March 25, 1996, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. The show was hosted by Whoopi Goldberg. The ceremony was watched by 44.48 million viewers, with 30.5% of households tuning in. Despite controversy from the NAACP concerning what was deemed as a lack of attention to African-American actors by the Academy, this show was the one and only time an African-American (Quincy Jones) was hired to produce the show to date.
Key moments in this presentation included Christopher Reeve making his first public appearance onstage after becoming paralyzed, and a Lifetime Achievement Award to Kirk Douglas (recovering from a stroke), and a tribute to Gene Kelly from Savion Glover (Kelly had died one month prior to the ceremonies). Best Documentary Feature winner Jon Blair introduced Miep Gies, the last survivor of the group of people who had sheltered Anne Frank and her family and 4 other people in their secret Amsterdam hiding place during World War II, and the person who had saved Anne Frank's now famous diary for posterity. The entire audience in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion gave Gies a lengthy standing ovation.
Braveheart won five Oscars out of ten nominations including Best Picture. It is however, one of the few Best Picture winners that did not receive any acting nominations, a feat that would not be repeated until 2004, when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was nominated for (and won) eleven Oscars, none of which were in an acting category. This year's ceremony was the last time the Special Achievement Academy Award was awarded, to the first CGI animated feature Toy Story from Pixar, for making the first CGI animated film. Also, Mira Sorvino's won for Best Supporting Actress for Mighty Aphrodite making her the second winner of Best Supporting Actress from a Woody Allen's film in a row, after last year Dianne Wiest also won Best Supporting Actress for Bullets Over Broadway, a Woody Allen film. The Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short winners were both about the Holocaust.
As of 2012 this is the last Oscars where all 4 acting winners were not in a Best Picture nominated film. Last time that happened was during the 42nd Academy Awards
Read more about 68th Academy Awards: Awards, Multiple Nominations and Awards
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“I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike—and I don’t think there really is a distinction between the two—are always dominated by fools, knaves, charlatans and bureaucrats. And that being the case, any human being, male or female, of whatever status, who has a voice of her or his own, is not going to be liked.”
—Harold Bloom (b. 1930)