Oscars: Emma Stone (‘Poor Things’) and Paul Giamatti (‘The Holdovers’) would be 4th Golden Globe musical/comedy pair to prevail

The Academy Awards have a chance to do something that has only been done three previous times in their entire history. With Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”) and Emma Stone (“Poor Things”) nabbing surprising wins at the Critics Choice Awards, it’s the first time ever that both of their lead acting winners matched with the Golden Globe Musical/Comedy champions. If they both repeat at the Oscars on March 10, it would only be the fourth time that the winners of Best Actor and Best Actress paired with the Globe comedy winners.

The first time we had this match since the Golden Globe category creation in 1950 was for the year 1964 when musical films dominated the awards with Rex Harrison winning for “My Fair Lady” as Professor Henry Higgins and Julie Andrews for “Mary Poppins” as the title character. Those movies went on to be the top two nominated films at the Oscars going double digits with the former getting 12 and the latter 13. “My Fair Lady” ended the night with the most wins at eight, including Best Picture and Best Director for George Cukor to go with Harrison’s Best Actor win, while Andrews took home Best Actress and her movie got four additional wins. This would be the only year that both lead acting Oscar wins went to musical films.

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Thirteen years later in 1977 would be the year of romance comedy-dramas with “Annie Hall” and “The Goodbye Girl.” What makes this interesting is that these two films each got five Oscar nominations and were competing in four of the major five categories: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay, with the former in Best Director and the latter in Best Supporting Actress. “Annie Hall” went on to have a good night, succeeding in all of its categories against “The Goodbye Girl,” except Best Actor where Richard Dreyfuss won against Woody Allen. He also triumphed at the Globes along with “Annie Hall” leading lady Diane Keaton, who actually tied with Dreyfuss’s co-star Marsha Mason in the Comedy/Musical category for “The Goodbye Girl.” But Keaton was the sole victor for Best Actress at the Oscars, and Allen picked up his wins for directing, writing and producing.

The year of 1997 was not only the last time this rarity occurred, but also the last time both lead acting wins came from the same movie with James L. Brooks’ romantic dramedy “As Good As It Gets.” Starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, they both took home Comedy/Musical Golden Globes and Oscars for their performances – Nicholson getting his third Oscar victory – the only two wins out of the movie’s seven nominations, including Best Picture. It was the third time the lead comedy champs repeated at the Oscars after 20 years, and “As Good As It Gets” also became the seventh movie to win both lead acting prizes, sharing the distinction with “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991), “On Golden Pond” (1981), “Coming Home” (1978), “Network” (1976), “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975) and “It Happened One Night” (1934).

Now we might get another result like that after 26 years with Stone and Giamatti winning for their respective films. Both of their Critics Choice victories were unexpected as many thought the Golden Globe lead winners for the Drama categories, Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”) and Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), would prevail. Now with their continued BAFTA and SAG nominations, they are both rising in contention for the Oscar win and making history, and it will be exciting to see if either will pick up more hardware as these lead acting categories have now become a tight horse race.

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