Hosting the Oscars is a difficult, thankless job. We revisit the good, bad and ugly attempts.
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Do you know who is hosting the 94th Academy Awards this weekend? Does it matter? Actually, don't answer that. It just does. Trust us. Whether performed by a famous comedian, a former child star or a Bob Hope hologram, the Oscars host is as integral to the ceremony as the golden man himself.
The show is changing but the host - whether live and in person or just a vague idea - endures. They can tank the ceremony or take it to the next level.
Don't think so? Even the most fickle awards show watcher knows that Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin, Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres, Anne Hathaway, James Franco and almost Kevin Hart have conquered (or been defeated by) "the least wanted job in Hollywood." The number of people who've made it through a telecast in its entirety is steadily dwindling, but who doesn't remember "envelope-gate?" Or the selfie? Or "We Saw Your Boobs?" The job might be thankless (according to two-time host Chevy Chase) or downright career suicide, but hosting the Academy Awards remains a proverbial blue check, cementing the men and women brave enough to accept in the annals of Hollywood history.
After going hostless for three years, this year's ceremony will be co-captained by Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes, whose presence represents a return to business as usual in more ways than one.
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Here's a look back at the hosting gig and how it can sink the ship or keep it afloat.
- Comic relief
Oscar jokes must tread a fine line: Quips should be topical but not politically incorrect, taunting but not offensive, memorable but not controversial. Cue the talk-show host. "Jimmy Kimmel Live!'s" namesake was the last person to emcee the ceremony way back in 2018. As a funnyman and late-night host, Kimmel (and others like him) could deliver a sharp monologue, engage a large crowd inside the theater as well as those hopefully watching from home, and keep the show moving at a clip. Those are talents specific to folks familiar with the medium, which is why the academy continually goes back to the well for them to anchor the big night. "Tonight Show" icon Johnny Carson helmed the show five times; Kimmel, DeGeneres and Jon Stewart have each hosted two ceremonies.
But the talk-show hosts can't touch the straight-up comedians. Iconic entertainer Bob Hope rules from the top of the heap, hosting the Oscars a record 19 times from 1940 to 1978. At the 1968 ceremony, Hope, who'd never won a gold statue for his acting (though he racked up an array of honorary trophies), joked, "Welcome to the Academy Awards, or as it's known in my house: Passover." Hope became synonymous with the ceremony and directly inspired comedic actor Crystal - who was 5 years old when Hope hosted the first televised ceremony in 1953 - to anchor the show nine times.
"I wanted to do what Bob Hope did," Crystal said from the main stage during a surprise appearance in 2011. What made the "When Harry Meet Sally" star such a great emcee in his own right, according to pal and fellow host Goldberg, was that he was a fan.
"Billy is one of those people who you know loves cinema," she said in an interview with Variety. "When he would talk about what was happening, or he had some comment about a film, you knew he knew what he was talking about. And that's what you want. Because there's nothing worse than a three-hour deadly show. You don't mind if it's three hours, if you laughed a lot." Goldberg, who hosted four times and regularly lands on best-host lists alongside Hope and Crystal, was the first (and still only) Black woman to host the show solo. (Hall and Sykes this year will be the second and third Black women to join the ranks.)
- Group project
Though some may have been surprised by last month's announcement of a triumvirate of hosts, the multi-star formula is nothing new for the academy. As many as six stars split duties at some '50s ceremonies; the 30th Academy Awards were hosted by Hope, Jack Lemmon, David Niven, Rosalind Russell, James Stewart and, weirdly, a cartoon Donald Duck. During much of the 1970s, four hosts took the reins, with combinations as varied as the 49th annual ceremony's, whose quartet included Warren Beatty, Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda and Richard Pryor.
But it's been 35 years since a trio - namely Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn and Paul Hogan - took the reins. Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales wrote that the 1987 show "lacked emotional highs and had to depend for life on the occasionally sparkling contributions of comic-minded presenters." Though the hosts themselves were hardly the highlight, Hogan, fresh from the success of "Crocodile Dundee," got a gold star. During his welcome from the podium, Hogan said he represented the audience watching from home and told the crowd inside the theater that "as a television show, it does tend to go off the boil particular as we drift into the third and fourth hour." The Aussie actor, who was nominated for best original screenplay, then reminded his movie star peers to "be gracious, be grateful, get off."
The year before also featured a Holy Trinity onstage with Alan Alda, Jane Fonda and Robin Williams stewarding the ceremony. This was also the telecast that cemented an oft-cited Oscars myth that 1 billion people around the world watch the show. The opening monologue riffed on that number (since debunked) with Williams, a master of voices, serving as a universal translator of sorts to the global audience, speaking in Chinese, Hindi, French and then, in a joke that would probably not fly today, impersonating an aggressive Filipino shoe salesman.
In a tribute to Williams, who died in 2014, Alda wrote in Time magazine that the comedian came up with several of his Oscar night bits in the wings and on the fly. "He would think of a line and say, 'Is that too tasteless?'" Alda recalled. "Invariably, I'd say, 'Yes, it's too tasteless,' and invariably he'd go onstage, say the line and kill with it."
While group projects are often derided (one person usually ends up doing 99.9% of the work) in the case of the Oscars, spreading the responsibilities, fan power and potential blowback have been a winning recipe.
- Getting creative
Two names: Anne Hathaway and James Franco. OK, fine, there are more. Seth MacFarlane. Neil Patrick Harris. Hugh Jackman. These are the hosts who don't fit the old school Oscar mode. They aren't comedians in the traditional sense, hosts of their own shows or Oscar production alums. This is a class that defies any cohesive definition aside from "different." But the goal with outside-of-the-box hosts is pretty obvious: Get more (and younger) eyeballs on the broadcast. The results have been a toss-up.
First, the not so good. Hathaway and Franco were an odd couple from the beginning. "Hathaway worked her derriere off and Franco came off like that lacrosse boy you wish your daughter didn't hang out with so much," wrote Post TV critic Hank Stuever of the 2011 pairing. Google any Oscars host ranking, and this duo consistently land at the bottom. Franco blamed it on the writing. Hathaway originally turned down the job and said it was Franco who convinced her to change her mind. "Your first instinct is usually the right one," she later said in an interview.
Looking back, Rob Lowe probably could have used Hathaway's advice in 1989 before he sang an awkward, reworked version of "Proud Mary" alongside Snow White during the hostless 61st Academy Awards, in one of the most universally panned Oscars performances to date.
"I couldn't imagine a world where a 25-year-old would stand up to Marvin Hamlisch and go: 'You know what? Your lyrics are a little cheesy, sir,'" Lowe recalled to the New York Times, referring to the Oscar-winning composer who wrote the opening number. "But clearly, that might have been a good idea."
To be fair, musical numbers have always had the potential to be a third rail. Before he took the stage in 2013, MacFarlane told the Times of his upcoming hosting gig: "It could be a disaster. Who knows?" Well, probably whoever wrote that "We Saw Your Boobs" number during which the "Ted" director, known for his off-color, raunchy humor, pointed to all the A-list actresses in the audience whose breasts had appeared on film. The audience was not amused, but according to MacFarlane, the academy asked him to return the following year. (He did not.)
Neil Patrick Harris, no stranger to Hollywood, the stage or a good soft shoe, opened the 2015 awards with a song and dance. He even did magic! But somehow the veteran actor's 2015 turn as emcee didn't completely gel, and the next day's reviews were not kind. The actor was dubbed low-energy and bland. His awkward jokes about race ("Tonight we honor Hollywood's best and Whitest - sorry, brightest") at the height of the #OscarsSoWhite campaign didn't help. For his part, Harris didn't expect an imminent return to the telecast, telling HuffPost that the gig "was fun to check off the list, but for the amount of time spent and the understandable opinionated response, I don't know that it's a delightful balance to do every year or even again."
But not all dancing showmen are made equal. Hugh Jackman got a rousing standing ovation for his 2009 opening number, during which he sang about the biggest movies of the year (including an "impromptu" duet with his eventual "Les Miserables" co-star Hathaway). He delighted those in the crowd with a mix of musical genres, futuristic dance numbers and some light mocking of the movies nominated that still felt respectful and celebratory. His superhero was showing.
The number would go down in history as one of the ceremony's best, and even won an Emmy Award for outstanding original music and lyrics. Laurence Mark, that year's Oscars producer, knew Jackman had a chance to stand out. "First of all, nothing against comedians ... but we had just seen a series of comedians [as hosts], " he told Vulture. "So, we thought, 'Let's get a song-and-dance man, if we can, to change things up a bit.' Then, once you get a song-and-dance man, you don't ask him to do a comic monologue. ... That's why Hugh Jackman turned out, in a way, to be the perfect answer to our prayers."
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