The night of April 8, 1963, was a night in Hollywood’s history when something real and something mythological happened simultaneously. The real event: a proxy acceptance, a loss experienced as an injustice, three women connected by one film and one ceremony. The mythological event: a rival’s revenge, a campaign orchestrated against the deserving, a statuette handed across a stage as an act of war.
Both events happened in the same building, on the same night. The real event left a documentary record. The mythological event left a legend.
The legend, as legends tend to do, has been more widely distributed.
But the real event is the one we can actually know.
Bancroft won. Crawford accepted. Davis lost. And all three of them went on, and did more work, and lived more lives, until they didn’t.
The Oscar night of 1963 was not the sum of any of them.
It just became the story we kept telling.
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SOURCES AND REPORTING NOTES
Sources consulted directly for this article:
Wikipedia: 35th Academy Awards — nominees, winners, venue, host, ceremony date, Crawford’s proxy role, other category results.
Wikipedia: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962 film) — production history (filming dates, budget, salary arrangements), box office data, awards record, critical reception, National Film Registry status.
Wikipedia: Joan Crawford — career chronology, MGM contract (December 1924), Mildred Pierce Oscar, later career, Pepsi role, death date.
Wikipedia: Bette Davis — career chronology, Warner Bros. years, Oscar wins and nominations, Hollywood Canteen, AFI Life Achievement Award, death date.
Wikipedia: Anne Bancroft — Broadway career, The Miracle Worker stage run, 1963 Oscar, subsequent nominations, death date. Confirmed Crawford presented Oscar to Bancroft in New York on May 7, 1963.