41st Annual Academy Awards Results and Commentary (1969)

©A.M.P.A.S.®

• Date of Ceremony: Monday, April 14, 1969
• For films released in: 1968

• Nominations List

Other years:

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The 41st Annual Academy Awards were handed out on Monday, April 14, 1969. For the first time, the ceremony was broadcast to a worldwide television audience. The show, which had no host, had a new home back in Los Angeles, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

The musical Oliver! became the only G-rated film ever to win Best Picture. It took home a total of five competitive awards and one honorary award — for Onna White’s choreography — on Oscar night.

Cliff Robertson took home the Best Actor for Charly. The trivia books had their eyes on the Best Actress category. Katharine Hepburn now had a record-breaking eleven nominations. Her win for The Lion in Winter made her only the third performer to win in consecutive years. She also shared the award in a tie with Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl. Wallace Beery and Fredric March had tied back in 1932, but the rules then allowed a tie to be declared when the nominees were within three votes of each other. The rules in effect now meant that the two legendary women had the exact same number of votes.

Results

Best Picture

• Oliver!
  John Woolf [Producer]

Best Directing

• Oliver!
  Carol Reed

Best Actor

• Charly
  Cliff Robertson

Best Actress

• Funny Girl
  Barbra Streisand
• The Lion in Winter
  Katharine Hepburn

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

• The Subject Was Roses
  Jack Albertson

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

• Rosemary's Baby
  Ruth Gordon

Best Foreign Language Film

• War and Peace

Best Art Direction

• Oliver!
  John Box [Art Direction], Terence Marsh [Art Direction], Vernon Dixon [Set Decoration] and Ken Muggleston [Set Decoration]

Best Cinematography

• Romeo and Juliet
  Pasqualino De Santis

Best Costume Design

• Romeo and Juliet
  Danilo Donati

Best Documentary (Feature)

• Journey into Self
  Bill McGaw

Best Documentary (Short Subject)

• Why Man Creates
  Saul Bass

Best Film Editing

• Bullitt
  Frank P. Keller

Best Music (Score of a Musical Picture - original or adaptation)

• Oliver!
  John Green [Adaptation Score by]

Best Music (Original Score - for a motion picture [not a musical])

• The Lion in Winter
  John Barry

Best Music (Song - Original for the Picture)

• The Thomas Crown Affair "The Windmills of Your Mind"
  Michel Legrand [Music by], Alan Bergman [Lyrics by] and Marilyn Bergman [Lyrics by]

Best Short Subject (Cartoon)

• Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day
  Walt Disney

Best Short Subject (Live Action)

• Robert Kennedy Remembered
  Charles Guggenheim

Best Sound

• Oliver!
  Shepperton Studio Sound Department

Best Special Visual Effects

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
  Stanley Kubrick

Best Writing (Screenplay - based on material from another medium)

• The Lion in Winter
  James Goldman

Best Writing (Story and Screenplay - written directly for the screen)

• The Producers
  Mel Brooks

Honorary Award

• John Chambers
  Note: …for his outstanding makeup achievement for Planet of the Apes.
• Onna White
  Note: …for her outstanding choreography achievement for Oliver!

Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award

• Martha Raye

Scientific or Technical Award (Class I)

• Philip V. Palmquist [of Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co.], Dr. Herbert Meyer [of the Motion Picture and Television Research Center] and Charles D. Staffell [of the Rank Organization]
  Note: …for the development of a successful embodiment of the reflex background projection system for composite cinematography.
• Eastman Kodak Company
  Note: …for the development and introduction of a color reversal intermediate film for motion pictures.

Scientific or Technical Award (Class II)

• Donald W. Norwood
  Note: …for the design and development of the Norwood Photographic Exposure Meters.
• Eastman Kodak Company and Producers Service Company
  Note: …for the development of a new high-speed step-optical reduction printer.
• Edmund M. Di Giulio [of the Cinema Product Development Company], Neils G. Petersen [of the Cinema Product Development Company] and Norman S. Hughes [of the Cinema Product Development Company]
  Note: …for the design and application of a conversion which makes available the reflex viewing system for motion picture cameras.
• Optical Coatings Laboratories Inc.
  Note: …for the development of an improved anti-reflection coating for photographic and projection lens systems.
• Eastman Kodak Company
  Note: …for the introduction of a new high speed motion picture color negative film.
• Panavision Inc.
  Note: …for the conception, design and introduction of a 65mm hand-held motion picture camera.
• Todd-AO Corp. and Mitchel Camera Company
  Note: …for the design and engineering of the Todd-AO hand-held motion picture camera.

Scientific or Technical Award (Class III)

• Carl Hauge [of Consolidated Film Industries], Edward Reichard [of Consolidated Film Industries], E. Michael Meahl [of Ramtronics] and Roy J. Ridenour [of Ramtronics]
  Note: …for engineering an automatic exposure control for printing-machine lamps.
• Eastman Kodak Company and Consolidated Film Industries
  Note: To Eastman Kodak Company for a new direct positive film and to Consolidated Film Industries for the application of this film to the making of post-production work prints.