1970

George C. Scott won the Best Actor Oscar for his memorable performance as General George Patton in Fox’s classic war biopic Patton  but he declined to accept the nomination and the gold statuette award (and did not attend the awards ceremony in 1971), because he did not feel himself to be in any competition with other actors, calling it a “meat parade” or “meat market.” Earlier, he had declined his nomination for his role in The Hustler (1961), becoming the first actor to decline an Oscar nomination.

With Helen Hayes’ win as Best Supporting Actress for Airport, she became the first person to receive Academy Awards in the two categories honoring performers. She had previously won Best Actress 38 years earlier for The Sin of Madelon Claudet.

MPAA’s “M”(Mature) rating was changed to PG (Parental Guidance). Nevada millionaire Kirk Kerkorian bought MGM in 1970, and then promptly downsized the company.  The sell-off financed an expansion of Kerkorian’s hotel-casino investments, and began a decline for the studio.

Plenty of actors made their film debuts including: Tommy Lee Jones; Diane Keaton; Susan Sarandon; Sissy Spacek; and Sylvester Stallone.  The film world lost Cathy O’Donnell; Ed Begley; Billie Burke; Edward Everett Horton; and Charles Ruggles.

Richard Nixon ordered troops in Vietnam to cross the border into neutral Cambodia.  The Ohio National Guard shot 13 students at Kent State, killing 4, at protest rally against the war.  Eleven days later police shot 12 students, killing 2, during racial violence at Jackson State University in Mississippi.  The voting age was lowered to 18.

An oxygen tank exploded and Apollo 13’s lunar landing was aborted.  After much anxiety, the crew was brought safely home.

“Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel spent six weeks on the Billboard charts and was the No. 1 hit of the year.  The music world lost Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

Collected Stories by Jean Stafford won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; No Place to Be Somebody by Charles Gordone won for Drama; and Seymour Hirsch won the International Reporting Prize for his exclusive disclosure of the Mei Lai massacre in Viet Nam.  Time Magazine’s Man of the Year was West German Chancellor Willie Brandt “for his bold approach to the Soviet Union and the East Bloc”.

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The list of movies I will select from is here.  I would be glad to get suggestions for anything good I may have left out.

Montage of photos from Oscar winners

Montage of photos from Oscar nominees in the major categories