The 40th Academy Awards were held on April 10, 1968, to honor film achievements of 1967. Originally scheduled for April 8, the awards were postponed to two days later due to the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.[1]Bob Hope was once again the host of the ceremony.
This year, due to the waning popularity of black-and-white films, Best Cinematography, Art Direction, and Costume Design, previously divided into separate awards for color and monochrome films, were merged into single categories. This was the first Oscars since 1948 to feature clips from the Best Picture nominees.
This year marked the first of two times that three different films were nominated for the "Big Five" Oscars (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay): Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. While all three won major Oscars, Best Picture was awarded to Norman Jewison's thriller/mystery film, In the Heat of the Night. The same thing happened again at the ceremony for films from 1981 where the Best Picture winner was not one of the three films with "Big Five" nominations.
Due to an all-out push by Academy President Gregory Peck, 18 of the 20 acting nominees were present at the ceremony.[1] Only Katharine Hepburn and the late Spencer Tracy, who was nominated posthumously, were missing. Edith Evans was the last performer born in the 1880s to receive an acting nomination (Best Actress, for her role in The Whisperers).
Arthur Freed was presented for distinguished service to the Academy and the production of six top-rated Awards telecasts.
Trivia
This was the last Oscars broadcast by network radio in the US. The ABC radio network (which had just split into four separate services) carried the ceremony over the ABC Entertainment network.
Of the 20 performers nominated in the acting categories only two didn't attend: Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Hepburn, whose award for Best Actress was accepted by George Cukor, was in France filming The Lion in Winter, and Tracy, whose nomination was posthumous as he had died ten months before the ceremony occurred.
There was no Governor's Ball.
Prior to the two-day postponement, four African-American stars who were scheduled to take part in the ceremony: Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong, and Diahann Carroll, announced they were withdrawing in mourning for Dr. King. Prior to the postponement, Jack Lemmon was announced as a replacement for Poitier, and Shirley Jones for Davis, but once the event was delayed, the original quartet returned.
Alfred Hitchcock's acceptance speech is on record as one of the shortest in Academy Awards history: "Thank you very much indeed". This is one word longer than William Holden's acceptance speech for Stalag 17 at the 26th Academy Awards, which was simply "Thank you ... thank you."
Legendary film composer John Williams received his first nomination for scoring Valley of the Dolls. He would go on to receive 50 more nominations, winning 5.
Edith Evans was the last performer born in the 1880s to receive an acting nomination (Best Actress, for her role in The Whisperers).
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