What Movie Won Best Picture in 1970
On April 7, 1970, the legendary actor John Wayne wins his first—and only—acting Academy Award, for his star turn in the director Henry Hathaway's Western True Grit.
Wayne appeared in some 150 movies over the course of his long and storied career. He established his tough, rugged, uniquely American screen persona most vividly in the many acclaimed films he made for the directors John Ford and Howard Hawks from the late 1940s into the early 1960s. He earned his first Oscar nomination, in the Best Actor category, for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). The Alamo (1960), which Wayne produced, directed and starred in, earned a Best Picture nomination.
Wayne's Oscar for True Grit at the 42nd annual Academy Awards in 1970 was generally considered to be a largely sentimental win, and a long-overdue reward for one of Hollywood's most enduring performers. The Academy had failed to even nominate Wayne for any of his most celebrated performances, in films such as Stagecoach (1939), Red River (1948), The Quiet Man (1952), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and especially Ford's The Searchers (1956), considered by many to be the greatest Western ever made. In True Grit, Wayne played a drunken, foul-tempered but endearing U.S. marshal named Rooster Cogburn, who becomes an unlikely hero when he helps a young girl avenge the murder of her father. He would reprise the role in the film's sequel, Rooster Cogburn (1975), opposite Katharine Hepburn.
Nominated for seven Oscars at the 42nd annual awards ceremony that night, John Schlesinger's gritty urban drama Midnight Cowboy won in the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay categories. The film's stars, Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, were both nominated in the Best Actor category but lost out to Wayne. Richard Burton (as King Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days) and Peter O'Toole (as the beloved schoolmaster Arthur Chipping in Goodbye, Mr. Chips) rounded out the category. It was the fourth of what would be eight career nominations (and no wins) for O'Toole.
In 1964, Wayne battled lung cancer, undergoing surgery to remove his entire left lung. He went public with news of his illness in hopes of convincing people to remain vigilant about cancer. In his last movie, The Shootist (1976), Wayne portrayed an aging gunfighter dying of cancer. Three years later, the great actor himself succumbed to stomach cancer at the age of 72 on June 11, 1979.
On April 7, 1979, nearly a year after his brother Bob pitched a no-hitter, Houston Astros pitcher Ken Forsch tosses his first career no-hitter. Ken and Bob become the first—and only—brothers to pitch official no-hitters in Major League Baseball history. On April 16, 1978, Bob ...read more
On April 7, 1963, a new Yugoslav constitution proclaims Tito the president for life of the newly named Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Formerly known as Josip Broz, Tito was born to a large peasant family in Croatia in 1892. At that time, Croatia was part of the ...read more
By a vote of 57 to 1, Dag Hammarskjöld is elected secretary-general of the United Nations. The son of Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, a former prime minister of Sweden, Dag joined Sweden's foreign ministry in 1947, and in 1951 formally entered the cabinet as deputy foreign minister. The ...read more
On April 7, 1994, violence fuels the launch of what would become the worst episode of genocide since World War II: the massacre of an estimated 500,000 to 1 million innocent civilian Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Following the first wave of massacres, Rwandan forces manage to ...read more
On April 7, 1945, the Japanese battleship Yamato, one of the greatest battleships of its time, is sunk in Japan's first major counteroffensive in the struggle for Okinawa. Weighing 72,800 tons and outfitted with nine 18.1-inch guns, the battleship Yamato was Japan's only hope of ...read more
On April 7, 1961, President John F. Kennedy sends a letter to Congress in which he recommends the U.S. participate in an international campaign to preserve ancient temples and historic monuments in the Nile Valley of Egypt. The campaign, initiated by UNESCO, was designed to save ...read more
After a long winter, the Lewis and Clark expedition departs its camp among the Mandan tribe and resumes its journey West. The Corps of Discovery had begun its voyage the previous spring, and it arrived at the large Mandan and Minnetaree villages along the upper Missouri River ...read more
Two days of heavy fighting conclude near Pittsburgh Landing in western Tennessee. The Battle of Shiloh became a Union victory after the Confederate attack stalled on April 6, and fresh Yankee troops drove the Confederates from the field on April 7. Shiloh began when Union General ...read more
President Dwight D. Eisenhower coins one of the most famous Cold War phrases when he suggests the fall of French Indochina to the communists could create a "domino" effect in Southeast Asia. The so-called "domino theory" dominated U.S. thinking about Vietnam for the next decade. ...read more
What Movie Won Best Picture in 1970
Source: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/john-wayne-wins-best-actor-oscar