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Black Actors Make Oscar History
Foxx wins for ‘Ray’; Freeman for ‘Million Dollar Baby’
Academy
Awards
Host Chris
Rock
backstage at
the 77th
Academy
Awards. (AP
Photo)
(A P )-Jam ie Foxx
and Morgan Freeman
made it another record
night for black actors at the Academy
Awards, their wins coming just three
years after Denzel W ashington and Halle
Berry shattered the O scars’ racial ceiling.
“ It means that Hollywood is continu
ing to make history,” Freeman said back-
stage. “W e’re evolving with the rest of
the world.”
Foxx, who went into Sunday ’ s com pe
tition as one o f the most certain front
runners in O scar history, won the best-
actor prize for his extraordinary em ula
tion of Ray Charles in the biopic “Ray.”
Freeman took the supporting-actor honor
for his role in “M illion Dollar Baby.”
In an acceptance speech both funny
and emotional, Foxx recalled being intro
duced years ago to pioneering black ac
tor Sidney Poitier.
“He said, ‘I give you responsibility.’
So I’m taking that responsibility tonight,”
Foxx said. “Thanks, Sidney.”
Foxx also paid tribute to his late grand
mother Estelle, the person he has cred
ited often with shaping his life.
“She still talks to me now, only now
she talks to me in my dream s,” he said,
breaking into tears. “And I can’t wait to
go to sleep tonight because we have a lot
to talk about. 1 love you.”
It was only the second time in the
Oscars’ 77-year history that blacks earned
two o f the four acting awards, following
Washington and Berry’s lead-acting wins
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Beyonce ' Knowles arrives
for the Vanity Fair post-
Oscars party at Morton's in
West Hollywood, Calif.
Sunday Knowles performed
two nominated songs at the
awards show. (AP photo)
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ceived a steady trickle of nomi
nations, with two winning the
supporting-actor prize (Louis
Gossett Jr. for 1982’s “An O f
ficer and a Gentlemen” and
W a sh in g to n fo r 1 9 8 9 ’s
“Glory”).
The 1990s brought two more
wins, Whoopi Goldberg as sup-
p o rtin g a c tre ss in 1990’s
“Ghost” and Cuba Gooding Jr.
as supporting actor in 1996’s
“Jerry M aguire.”
Berry and W ashington’s
wins were viewed as a sign of
progress, though at the time
doubters said they would wait
to see if those triumphs sig
naled real change or were merely
an aberration.
“T h in g s are c h a n g in g ,”
Berry said before the ceremony.
“I knew that three years ago.”
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Jamie Fox (left) and Morgan Freeman celebrate their winning Oscars. Fox was
voted best actor and Freeman best supporting actor. (AP photo)
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for “Training Day” and “M onster’s Ball.”
W ith a supporting actor nomination
for the hit-man thriller “Collateral,” Foxx,
37, also became the first black actor to
com pete in tw o categories in the same
year.
This time out, blacks overall had their
best year ever at the O scars, earning a
record five o f 20 acting nominations,
including the two for Foxx. Don
Cheadle was nominated as
best actor and Sophie
O konedo as best sup
porting actress for “Ho
tel Rwanda.”
“It’s kinda like Def
O scar Jam tonight,” ir
re v e re n t h o st C h ris
Rock said during his
opening monologue.
N o m in a te d th ree
times previously, Free
man, 67, won for his
role as a worldly wise
ex-boxer doing odd jobs at
a gym run by his best pal
(Clint Eastwood). The role was
tradem ark Freem an, an under
stated mix of rascally humor, wispy
melancholy, untarnished decency
and towering inner strength.
For most of their history, the O s
cars have largely been a whites-
only affair. Blacks account for just
3.2 percent of the acting nomina
tions, and while that figure is up
from 2.8 percent three years ago, it
remains a weak track record, consid
ering blacks make up 13 percent of
the U.S. population.
Until recent years, black actors had
few opportunities to appear in serious
films that might catch O scar attention.
“Black movies don’t have real names,
they have names like ‘Barbershop,’” Rock
quipped. "T hat’s not a name, that’s just
a location.”
There were only a handful of black
nominees in the first four decades of the
Oscars and just two winners, supporting
actress Hattie McDaniel for 1939’s “Gone
W ith the W ind” and best actor Poitier for
1963’s “Lilies of the Field.”
A surge o f nominations for blacks in
the early 1970s was followed by a long
drought. In the 1980s, black actors re-
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