Both Peter O’Toole and Glenn Close starred in many famous movies in the last fifty years. They each garnered an amazing eight nominations for an Academy Award, though that’s hardly a record-breaking feat. Meryl Streep has captured a jaw-dropping twenty-one nominations and so leads the pack.
What is record-breaking is the fact that although O’Toole and Close have sixteen nominations between them, they do not have a single win. But please reserve your compassion for a more worthy recipient.
Let me introduce you to Diane Warren, a 69-year-old super-talent, who has been nominated for an Oscar a whopping sixteen times herself, and yet, like them, still remains Oscar-less. Her merciless category is Best Original Song.
And yet what incredible success she has had when not writing songs for movies! She’s has penned nine #1 hits on the U. S. charts and 34 that made the Top 10, including Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me” and Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time.” (I confess to writing this paragraph only because Cher’s song has been torturing me as an earworm, and I am mean enough to want to share the torment with you as well… “If I could find a way…”)
So let’s finally arrive at my real topic: runners-up, those competitors finishing behind the winner. I was runner-up for student council vice-president in high school. My advisor assured me that the loss was a great motivator and teacher of patience and persistence.
But I thought the comment of the jokester sitting next to me in homeroom was more on the mark. He cheerfully pointed out that my being first runner-up for vice-president was basically being the runner-up for the runner-up for president. He summarized that coming in second place is basically being the first-place loser.
Even the Academy Award committee has attempted to be kinder to the runners-up. Beginning in 1989, the Academy informed presenters that when they opened the envelope, they should no longer say “And the winner is” but should more gently announce “And the Oscar goes to…” No losers here, just non-winners.
After the Academy Awards were first given in 1929, the winners became so boastful and arrogant about their gold statuette that there was talk of abandoning the awards due to jealousy on the movie sets. It was Bette Davis who might have saved the award by cutting through the pretentious nonsense.
The moment came at a press conference following her Best Actress Award in 1935 for Dangerous. Clutching her award, Davis was asked what it felt like to win one. Turning the male statuette around, she took a sly glance and remarked, “His backside reminds me of my first husband, Oscar.” With one comment, she not only pricked some of the pretentiousness of winning one, but her hilarious nickname still survives.
When Peter O’Toole lost for the eighth (and what would be his last) time, an unkind reporter had the gall to ask him if he was disappointed because he had never won. His answer should be an inspiration for all of us: “Just because the sky is full of magnificent high-soaring birds, it doesn’t mean that I don’t still want to fly my kite.”
The term “runner up” originated during 1840’s dog racing to describe the dog that kept winning up until the final race, losing only to the winner, meaning it “ran up” to the end. Our lives are all races against time which we ultimately lose. But if we can run up to the end with both great purpose and humility, our whole human race will be the better for our fleeting participation.
Email Elliot at huffam@me.com or click here