The Oscars

Hollywood knew it was all cut and dried. For weeks the columnists had been accurately predicting who would carry away Oscars from the award-giving show of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Any glamour that was left was promptly rubbed out by the split-second demands of television, which turned the parade of winners into a supermarket mob scene. "It was." concluded Hollywood Restaurateur Mike Romanoff, "perfectly dull."

Only the nominees contending for awards managed to work up some tension. In Paris, where she is appearing in the French version of the play Tea and Sympathy, Expatriate Ingrid Bergman, up for best actress for her performance in Anastasia, hustled home after the last curtain, downed sedatives, and slept soundly until her phone rang at 6 a.m. with the news of her second Oscar. (Her first: in 1944, for the role of Mrs. Anton in Gaslight.) His shaved head glistening like a polished cue ball, Yul Brynner won the best actor award for his autocratic king in Rodgers and Hammerstein's successful cinemusical, The King and I (which took four other Oscars for its technical skill).

Other major winners:

Best picture: Mike Todd's Around the World in 80 Days.

Best direction: George Stevens for Giant.

Supporting actress: Dorothy Malone for -Written on the Wind. -

Supporting actor: Anthony Quinn for Lust for Life.

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