Vietnam war films scoop Oscars

Press, 11 April 1979, Page 8

Vietnam war films scoop Oscars

NZPA-Reuter Los Angeles Jane Fonda and Jon Voight, the stars of “Coming Home,” a film with a Vietnam theme, have won Hollywood Academy Awards as best actress and best actor, and another film with a Vietnam theme, “The Deer Hunter,” was voted best film. After the years in which Hollywood regarded Vietnam films as certain disasters at the box office, the film colony finally admitted there had been a war. Thirteen members of a group protesting against the Vietnam, war and “The Deer Hunter” were arrested outside the auditorium where the awards were being presented, authorities have said. The demonstrators, some clad in fatigues and berets and carrying placards decrying “The Deer Hunter” as a racist apology for the Vietnam war, were booked for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon against a police officer or incitement to riot, said a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy. . The two biggest receptions of the night were reserved by the star-studded crowd at the televised awards ceremony for two 71-year-olds

— Laurence Olivier and' John Wayne. Olivier, who was elevated to he peerage in 1970, received a standing ovation when he came on stage to receive an honorary Oscar for his lifetime contribution to film. The outspoken Miss Fonda accompanied the opening of her acceptance speech in sign language. “There are 14 million people who are deaf and can’t share in this award and so this is my way of acknowledging them,” she said.

Miss Fonda won an Oscar in 1971 for “Klute” and had also been nominated on two other occasions for the best actress award. • The Film “Coming Home” is about an American soldier, played by Voight, who returns home from the Vietnam War in a 'wheelcnair and his relationship with Miss Fonda, who plays the wife of a Marine officer. “The Deer Hunter,” which starred Robert de Niro, concerned the scars left by the war on three friends who left their Pennsylvania steel town to go to Vietnam. A thin-looking John Wayne, who last January underwent a nine-hour operation for the removal of his stomach because of cancer, received a standing ovation when he announced the best film award Maggie Smith won the Oscar statuette for best supporting actress for her role as an actress nominated for an Oscar in “California Suite.” The Vietnam war theme was continued when Christopher Walken won best supporting actor for his portrayal as one of the three friends who goes to war in “The Deer Hunter.”