Although there had been occasional tributes to recently deceased performers and other film greats through the years, the first In Memoriam segment at the Oscars where multiple actors and other film participants are honored did not occur until 1994.
Each year, we look to this segment with lumps in our throats and tears in our eyes as the world says goodbye to a wide range of unforgettable contributors to the medium of the movies. Each year, we see the faces of some we didn’t know had died, some we had forgotten had passed on, and some we were expecting to see for the last time in an international telecast. Sometimes we expect to see others that are unexpectedly left out of the segment.
Here are five film greats we all expect to see in this year’s segment that we will be upset over not seeing if they are somehow left out of the segment:
DONALD SUTHERLAND (7/17/1935 – 6/20/2024)
Donald Sutherland first caught our attention in supporting roles in such films as 1965’s Die! Die! My Darling and 1967’s The Dirty Dozen. He emerged as a full-blown star in the early 1970s in such landmark films as M*A*S*H, Klute, and Don’t Look Now. Later in the decade, he was equally astonishing in the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Then in 1980, he was every bit as good as Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton, and Judd Hirsch, all of whom were nominated for their performances in the Oscar winning Ordinary People, with Hutton winning while Sutherland was inexplicably left off the list of acting nominees. He soldiered on, giving memorable performances on screens big and small almost to the end, finally winning an Oscar – albeit an honorary, rather than a competitive one, in 2018.
JAMES EARL JONES (1/17/31 – 9/9/2024)
James Earl Jones was an EGOT winner, having won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony, but like Donld Sutherland, his Oscar was an honorary one, given to him in 2012. Unlike Sutherland, he was, however, Oscar nominated for one of his performances, that of the champion prizefighter in 1970’s The Great White Hope for which he previously won the first of his three Tony awards. Having made his film debut in 1964’s The Great White Hope, his most famous role was as the voice of Darth Vader in the first three Star Wars films, 1977’s Star Wars, 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, and 1983’s The Return of the Jedi. He refused credit for the first two as he didn’t feel his contribution was enough to warrant a credit. He finally relented on the third one. His second most famous role was as the cynical author in 1989’s Field of Dreams.
MAGGIE SMITH (12/28/1934 – 9/27/2024)
Maggie Smith was an acting legend on stage, in film, and on TV pretty much in that order. Her first film was 1958’s Nowhere to Go. Her breakthrough came five years later in The V.I.P.s, which she and Margaret Rutherford stole from Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. She received her first of six Oscar nominations opposite Laurence Olivier in 1965’s Othello. She won her first of two Oscars on her second nomination for 1969’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and her second on her fourth nomination for 1978’s California Suite. Younger fans grew up with her portrayal of Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films from 2001-2011. It was, however, her Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham in the world-wide TV phenomenon from 2010-2015 that provided her with her greatest fame which lasted for the rest of her life.
DAVID LYNCH (1/20/1946 – 1/15/2025)
Writer-producer-director David Lynch rose to fame with his first full-length feature film, 1977’s fantasy horror classic, Eraserhead. With 1980’s The Elephant Man for which he received Oscar nods for writing and directing and 1986’s Blue Velvet for which he nominated for directing, he proved to be one of our greatest directors with his own brand of classic plotting with a mix of the unusual, if not the bizarre. From 1989-1991, he proved to be a master of TV with his eerily successful Twin Peaks. His 1997 film, Lost Highway, drew both positive and negative review, but his critically acclaimed 1999 film, The Straight Story, he had a brief return to normalcy, but it was 2001’s return to his classic mix of classic plotting and the unusual for which he won his fourth Oscar nod. He received an honorary Oscar in 2020.
JOAN PLOWRIGHT (10/28/1929 – 1/16/2025)
Joan Plowright rose to fame as Laurence Olivier’s daughter in the 1957 London play, The Entertainer, which she later played in the 1958 Broadway production and the 1960 film. In 1961, she became his third wife and in 1970, Baroness Olivier when Olivier became a Baron. She was later given the title of Dame in her own name. A BAFTA nominee for 1977’s Equus, she didn’t receive an Oscar nomination until 1992’s Enchanted April three years after she was nominated for a NYFC award for Avalon. Later triumphs included her performances in 1999’s Tea with Mussolini, 2005’s Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, and of course, 2018’s Tea with the Dames, filmed at her country estate with fellow dames Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Eileen Atkins. She was in fine fettle even if she was legally blind and half deaf at the time.
