Oscars — Season 1977

The 49th Academy Awards were presented Monday, March 28, 1977, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. The ceremonies were presided over by Richard Pryor, Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda, and Warren Beatty. Network and All the President's Men were the two biggest winners of the ceremony with four Oscars each, but Best Picture and Best Director, as well as Best Editing, were won by Rocky. Network became the second and, to date, last film (after A Streetcar Named Desire) to win three acting Oscars, and the last, as of the 94th Academy Awards, to receive five acting nominations. It was also the eleventh of fifteen films (to date) to receive nominations in all four acting categories. Best Actor winner Peter Finch became the first posthumous acting winner, having suffered a fatal heart attack in mid-January. With only five minutes and two seconds of screentime, Beatrice Straight set a record for the shortest performance ever to win an acting Oscar (Best Supporting Actress). Piper Laurie was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Carrie (1976), her first role since her Best Actress-nominated performance in The Hustler (1961), thus being nominated for two consecutive roles, fifteen years apart. Lina Wertmüller became the first woman nominated for Best Director for Seven Beauties, which was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. With her win for Best Original Song as the composer for the love theme "Evergreen" from A Star Is Born, Barbra Streisand became the first woman to be honored in the category, and as of the 94th Academy Awards, the only person to have won Academy Awards for both acting and songwriting (following her Best Actress win for Funny Girl at the 40th Academy Awards).