The Pittsburgh Press (March 3, 1944)
Jennifer Jones and Paul Lukas win Motion Picture Academy’s Oscars
Tulsa girl clicks in first starring role; Casablanca best film
By Frederick C. Othman, United Press staff writer
Hollywood, California (UP) –
Jennifer Jones of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who has appeared in only one movie in her life – except when she rode in wild Westerns under another name – placed on her mantel today the gilded plaster Oscar symbolic of her reign for a year as the greatest actress in Hollywood.
Miss Jones won the prize last night at the 16th annual awards of the Motion Picture Academy for her work in The Song of Bernadette. She hugged the statuette to her breast while the cameras clicked in Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and whispered – in an aside – that she hoped it wouldn’t break.
The dignified Paul Lukas, looking more like a banker in a double-breasted suit than a movie star, was named best male actor for his performance in the memorable Watch on the Rhine.
The voters surprised, but did not disappoint, the movie colony by naming Casablanca, in which Humphrey Bogart took North Africa apart, as the best picture of 1943.
Casablanca was the movie which The Pittsburgh Press Old Newsboys showed for their Children’s Hospital Premiere in December 1942, one month before it was released nationally. This year, the Old Newsboys showed Destination Tokyo, which may also win high rank. Both pictures were made available to the Old Newsboys Drive by Warner Bros. and all proceeds went to Children’s Hospital.
The veteran Charles Coburn received the award as best supporting actor for his role in the comedy of life in Washington, The More the Merrier.
The strikingly-handsome Katina Paxinou, with her hair glistening in the blue-white lights and her deep purple dress making shadows across the stage, made the one poignant speech of the evening as she accepted her prize as best supporting actress in For Whom the Bell Tolls.
She began:
I accept the award on behalf of my colleagues in Athens – alive or dead.
When she had finished, many movie beauties in the audience were dabbling at their eyes with lace handkerchiefs.
While thousands outside the theater on Hollywood Boulevard tried in vain to find seats in bleachers on both sides of the street, and a battery of searchlights cast their beams in the skies, the great and the near-great of Hollywood sat inside, at $11 per seat, watching the three-hour program unreel.
There were dozens of technical awards, climaxed by the directorial prize going to one of Hollywood’s leading dialecticians, Michael Curtiz.
The theater was hushed when the black-clad Greer Garson strode to the microphone to announce the best actress of the year. She uttered no more than the word “Jennifer;” the cheers drowned out whatever else she had to say.
Miss Jones, mother of two children and separated from her husband, Robert Walker, strode through the glare of the spotlight, looking almost as thought she were a high school girl in her first party dress. Her frock was a modest one of dark blue.
She bit her lip, as if to hold back the tears, hugged the statuette to her breast, produced a big smile and said she was the world’s happiest girl.
She said:
I am thrilled. And I am grateful.