Best Actress 1972
Winner: Liza Minnelli, Cabaret
Nominees: Diana Ross, Lady Sings the Blues
Maggie Smith, Travels with My Aunt
Cicely Tyson, Sounder
Liv Ullmann, The Emigrants

The Field: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★


Ranking Oscar's Ballot
 
 My Pick:
Liza Minnelli, Cabaret ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

From There:
Cicely Tyson, Sounder ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Diana Ross, Lady Sings the Blues ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
As with the vehicle she headlines, Diana Ross' performance in Lady Sings the Blues is best enjoyed if you actively resist almost any initiative to connect the story, the personality, the style of singing, or the total absence of any genius whatsoever to the legacy of Billie Holiday, who probably would not have recognized, what, 80% of what's going on here as particularly pertinent or tailored to who she was and how she performed. Let's admit that this is an awfully tall order, particularly in the movie's last half-hour, when the Billy Dee Williams character's reckless abandonment of "Billie" mid-tour, then her impromptu decision to pick the smack back up, and then a quick montage of Carnegie Hall (big hit!) and Henny Penny newspaper headlines (big crash!) signal that the movie and the actors are almost giving up on the project, fading out instead of charging to a tragic close. Diana Ross adds some extra clarity and occasional zest to her typical vocalizations when singing Holiday's standards, which are strong material to begin with, so it's stingy not to be impressed by what she's trying to do; she just isn't evoking Holiday's vocalisms whatsoever, nor her depth, her pitch, or her phrasings, and even the period approximations in the orchestrations seem wrong, even to a musical idiot like me. It's like watching a movie about Loretta Lynn where she speaks with a Scottish burr. So, yeah, that's a lot of demerits, and I'm not even addressing the long, sustained takes where director Sidney J. Furie asks Ross to sustain improvised, histrionic reactions to her mother's death and her best friend's murder—choices that only underscore that we've got an ambitious entertainer, but not a trained actress, trying her best with an enormously difficult role. Pity. BUT: here's what you can say positively about Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues, and none of it should be discounted too quickly: the inherent dramatic tensions between her enormous, demanding eyes and her birdlike face and body make her a great subject for the camera; she works intensely and profitably with Furie in scenes other than those I just described, visibly nursing the wounds of her youth all the way through the finale, so that the closing rendition of "God Bless the Child" makes stirring dramatic sense; she's unexpectedly wonderful with moments of humor and tourbus bonhomie, and I loved how snappy-jawed and physically frisky she got whenever her character got a rare lucky break; her first date with Williams is sensational; and if you allow this "Billie Holiday" to be her own tremulous creation, a song stylist of engaging fragility with a tough stare and a half-embarrassed enjoyment of her glamorous clothes and gigs, then you can give Ross ample credit for a coherent characterization, albeit a limited one. She isn't Billie Holiday, and she's not convincing as a New York phenomenon, much less a national one, but she'll do as a persona to root for and to feel sorry for, even for two and a half hours, and she makes a bigger impression than the significant limitations of her interpreter and her film should allow.

Maggie Smith, Travels with My Aunt ★ ★ ★ ★ ★


Who gets your vote in this field, and on my dream ballot below? VOTE HERE!


My Favorites from 1972:
(As determined by years of Oscar eligibility)

My Pick: Liza Minnelli, Cabaret
Nominees: Ellen Burstyn, The King of Marvin Gardens
Nominees: Diane Keaton, Play It Again, Sam
Nominees: Delphine Seyrig, The Discreet Chram of the Bourgeoisie
Nominees: Cicely Tyson, Sounder

Honorable Mentions: Diana Ross, Lady Sings the Blues

Also-Rans (alpha): Maggie Smith, Travels with My Aunt

Gourmet Prospects: Lili Darvas, Love; Jane Fonda, Tout va bien; Barbara Hershey, Boxcar Bertha; Ali MacGraw, The Getaway; Shirley MacLaine, The Possession of Joel Delaney; Lea Massari, Murmur of the Heart; Romy Schneider, César and Rosalie; Barbra Streisand, Up the Sandbox; Barbra Streisand, What's Up, Doc?; Janet Suzman, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg; Liv Ullmann, The Emigrants; Tuesday Weld, Play It As It Lays; Joanne Woodward, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds; Susannah York, Images; Zouzou, Chloë in the Afternoon

Further Research: Anne Bancroft, Young Winston; Karen Black, Portnoy's Complaint; Carol Burnett, Pete 'n' Tillie; Sandra Cassel, The Last House on the Left; Marilyn Chambers, Behind the Green Door; Patty Duke, You'll Love My Mother; Faye Dunaway, The Deadly Trap; Lee Grant, Portnoy's Complaint; Joan Hackett, Rivals; Goldie Hawn, Butterflies Are Free; Sally Kellerman, Last of the Red Hot Lovers; Louise Lasser, Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask; Sophia Loren, Man of La Mancha; Kika Markham, Anne and Muriel; Juliet Mills, Avanti!; Jeanne Moreau, Nathalie Granger; Rosemary Murphy, You'll Love My Mother; Bulle Ogier, The Salamander; Valerie Perrine, Slaughterhouse-Five; Paula Prentiss, Last of the Red Hot Lovers; Sandy Ratcliff, Family Life; Romy Schneider, The Assassination of Trotsky; Cybill Shepherd, The Heartbreak Kid; Stacey Tendeter, Anne and Muriel; Trish Van Devere, One Is a Lonely Number; Billie Whitelaw, Gumshoe; Shelley Winters, Who Slew Auntie Roo?

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