You have questions. I have some answers.
Q: George C. Scott and Marlon Brando both turned down their best actor Oscars, for “Patton” and “The Godfather” respectively. Have there been any other Hollywood or Broadway performers who have also turned down this much coveted award? I would find it hard to believe.
A: Besides Scott and Brando, the Oscar was turned down by a third person, Dudley Nichols, who won the Best Adapted Screenplay award for his script for “The Informer” in 1936. The book “Inside Oscar,” by Mason Wiley and Damien Bona, says that two new unions, the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild, were scrapping with the Hollywood studios and the Oscar-issuing Motion Picture Academy. That included a boycott of the 1936 Oscars ceremony and Nichols refusing to accept his Oscar. In fact, according to the book, Nichols sent his Oscar back twice. Two years later, Nichols — by then the president of the Writers Guild — accepted his award.
It should be noted that the Oscars are not the only awards people have said no-thank-you to. For example, Candice Bergen, after winning five Emmys for “Murphy Brown,” decided enough was enough and no longer sought nominations for that show. (She was later nominated for work on "Boston Legal.") With the Tony Awards, Julie Andrews famously declined her 1996 nomination for the stage musical version of “Victor/Victoria” after she was the only person involved with the show who was nominated; she called the other participants “egregiously overlooked.”
Q: I saw a Movie of the Week back in the ‘70s called “Vampire” starring Richard Lynch. Do you know if this movie is on DVD?
A: "Vampire" starred Richard Lynch as “a convincing Prince of Darkness,” one reference says about the made-for-TV film, which also starred Jason Miller, E.G. Marshall and Kathryn Harrold. You can find the 1979 production on YouTube if you just want to see it again. If you must have a DVD, I have seen it for sale online, but not from companies I can vouch for. You should spot it with a Google search and can then decide whether to take a chance.
Q: Could you please help me find a Christmas TV special? Faith Hill, from 2008 (we think), sang “Where Are You Christmas?” and “A Baby Changes Everything.” We do not know the name of it and we want to find a copy.
A: That is indeed from 2008 and is called “Faith Hill: Joy to the World,” also the title of a holiday album she released that year. It was billed as a “special event” from “Soundstage,” the long-running public TV music series. A concert presentation, with an orchestra backing Hill, the hourlong program has both of the songs you mentioned along with other holiday favorites, as I learned from watching it on YouTube.
Q: We used to watch “Designated Survivor” every week, then after the season finale it never returned. It was a really good program, and we wonder why it has not returned.
A: The drama starred Kiefer Sutherland as a relatively minor Cabinet member who becomes president after an explosion kills everyone ahead of him in the line of succession. It ran on ABC for two seasons from 2016 to 2018. After ABC canceled the show amid declining ratings, Netflix picked it for a third season which aired in 2019. Sutherland reportedly said around that time that doing a fourth season would be difficult, that “the contracts were so complicated and different from network television to Netflix ... they didn’t book a lot of the actors that were on the show, and they took other jobs, and I don’t blame them for a second for that.” And Netflix apparently found that too difficult, since it decided against a fourth season — although you can still find the three seasons on Netflix.
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