Oscars flashback 40 years to 1984 for Shirley MacLaine’s unforgettable winning speech: ‘I deserve this.’ [WATCH]
On the eve of Shirley MacLaine’s 90th birthday (on April 24), let’s revisit on this 96th Academy Awards day what remains one of the top five Oscar acceptance speeches (in my humble opinion) ever: the night 40 years ago when MacLaine won Best Actress for “Terms of Endearment” over co-star Debra Winger (who played her daughter) and three others. It hearkened back to an era before the orchestra played off the big winners if they dared exceed 90 seconds or so. MacLaine’s speech clocked in at a leisurely 3 minutes, 26 seconds, and not a moment of it seemed unnecessary on that night of April 9, 1984 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. It started with, “I’m gonna cry because this show has been as long as my career!” and ended with, “I deserves this. Thank you.” Watch the full presentation and speech above.
It was MacLaine’s sixth nomination and her first and only win. And man, was she ready to command the spotlight.
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Presenter Rock Hudson took to the stage (he would be diagnosed with AIDS later that year and die in October of ’85) alongside Liza Minnelli, who opened the envelope and excitedly read, “And the winner is Shirley MacLaine for ‘Terms of Endearment’!” Looking appropriately delighted, she bounded out of her seat and pointedly went over to plant a kiss on Winger, holding Winger’s face in her hands and chattering something in her ear. This was interesting considering the fact the two actresses had well-publicized issues on the set. But MacLaine opted to take the high road, at least for that moment.
Taking the stage and producing a nervous giggle, she pointed out how interminably long the show had been to that point before adding, “I have wondered for 26 years what this would feel like. Thank you so much for terminating the suspense. Oh my, I am nervous.”
But MacLaine didn’t allow that nervousness to get the best of her, or keep her from saying what she needed to say.
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“I’m not going to thank everybody I’ve ever met in my entire life – although, with the way my mind has been going lately probably everybody I’ve ever met in my entire life and in the other life I might have had had something to do with this.” She went on, “You know, if ‘Terms of Endearment’ had happened to me five years ago, I think I would have called it a thrilling, commercial, artistic accident. But I don’t believe that anymore. I don’t believe there’s any such thing as accident. I think that we all manifest what we want and what we need. I don’t think there’s any difference really between what you feel you have to do in your heart and success. They’re inseparable.”
After giving thanks to co-writer and director James L. Brooks, MacLaine addressed her co-star Jack Nicholson (who took the supporting actor Oscar for the movie). Nicholson looked appropriately cool in his dark shades while sitting in the audience, and MacLaine noted that she’d wanted to work with his “comic chemistry” since his chicken salad sandwich scene in “Five Easy Pieces.” “And to have him in bed was such middle-aged joy,” she added. Nicholson is shown howling at the observation.
She also honored Winger by noting her “turbulent brilliance” and continued, “She literally inhabited the character so thoroughly that I thought for four months that I had two daughters.”
MacLaine wrapped up her speech in a burst: “But in the end, just let me say one thing. Films and life are like clay waiting for us to mold it. And when you trust your own insides, and that becomes achievement, it’s a kind of a principle that seems to me is at work with everyone. God bless that principle. God bless that potential that we all have for making anything possible if we think we deserve it. I deserve this. Thank you.”
And that, folks, is how you accept an Oscar.
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