Celebrities Who Told The Academy To P*s off

The first time someone was banned by the Academy was in 2004. Carmine Caridi is the actor who played Carmine Rosato in Godfather Part II and Detective Vince Gotelli in NYPD Blue. He was expelled by the Academy on the subject of copyright infringement. The actor was caught by the Academy for bootleg internet copies of Oscar Screeners. Screeners are special DVDs only used by Academy members and critics. Although he was cleared of the charges against him, he was still expelled. Also, stayed expelled till his demise.

In 2017, a number of allegations were sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein came to light. Within a month, the producer was expelled from the organization. According to NPR, before he was banned by the Academy, they also called his actions “repugnant, abhorrent, and antithetical to the high standards of the academy and the creative community it represents.” In fact, the voting count in favor of the producer’s expulsion exceeded the minimum requirement of two-thirds. This incident happened 13 years after the previous ban. Many popular actresses had spoken against him.

A year after the expulsion of Harvey Weinstein, similar allegations started coming to light about Bill Cosby. Over 60 women came forward to speak against the member of the Academy. He was also convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, an ex-basketball player, in 2004. He was expelled within a month just like Weinstein following the new rule made by the Academy after the latter’s expulsion. The rule says that the Academy would ban “people who abuse their status, power or influence in a manner that violates standards of decency.”

One of the biggest controversies around the Academy has to be about Roman Polanski. The director was a member of the Academy and had won several nominations and two awards even when he could not attend the award ceremony. The reason why he was missing from the award ceremony was that he had fled the country. Why? Because the directors had pleaded guilty in the case of having unlawful sex with a minor in 1977. To avoid imprisonment he fled to Paris. Even after that, the Academy kept nominating him and giving him awards for his works. Only after a lot of revolt and hate towards the Academy, did they ban him a while after banning Bill Cosby.

Another case of someone being banned by the Academy for assault is Adam Kimmel. The cinematographer of films like Lars and the Real Girl was arrested twice for assaults against minors. He had a history of being a sex offender. In 2003, he pled guilty to assaulting a girl when she was 15 and 16 years old. And again in 2010, he was involved in a fourth-degree assault on a minor. Based on his offenses, he was banned by the Academy based on the same rule as the other members.

The legendary actor George C. Scott is known for his roles like Scrooge, General Patton, and Clarence Darrow. Playing General Patton won him an Oscar nomination but he when he got the call, he asked the Academy to “lose his number”. This comes decades after his first official declination for an oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 1961’s The Hustler. George C. Scott does not like the Academy and considers them too pompous and uptight. He even went as far as to say beforehand to the Academy that even if he wins an Oscar, we will decline it because he does not like them.

Brando was nominated in the Best Actors category for The Godfather. The 1973 Oscars did not see the legendary actor attend the event. He sent Sacheen Littlefeather in his stead. The woman took to the stage when Brando was officially announced the winner. But instead of thanking everyone like the other Oscar Winners do, Sacheen Littlefeather went to show Hollywood the mirror for portraying Native Americans in such bad light.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were both nominated for Oscars for their respective roles in Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? Burton had already seen a lot of snubs and had never made it to the Oscar Winners list despite so many nominations. So he convinced Taylor to go to Paris rather than be humiliated in front of his friends a fifth time. The 1966 Academy Awards was another Oscar snub for Burton although Elizabeth taylor won Best Actress. To show her solidarity, Taylor refused to accept it and showed the Academy she does not bow to them.

The acting legend had an incredible movie career spanning three decades. Between 1961 and 1982, the Cool Hand Luke star was nominated a whopping six times for the Oscars. He attended every ceremony, hoping to win at least once. he never did. In the end, he just got bored of the Academy shenanigans and called it quits, focusing solely on his career. When asked by the media, why he got tired, he put it very elegantly:

“It’s like chasing a beautiful woman for 80 years. Finally, she relents, and you say, ‘I’m terribly sorry. I’m tired.'”

Not many know this name but back in the 70s and 80s, John Gielgud was a force of nature to be reckoned with. His role of the quick-witted butler Hobson in the 1981 film – Arthur, won him an Oscar nomination. But Gielgud, was just as sharp-tongued in real life as his character Hobson in the movie. In Richard Mangan’s book – Gielgud’s Letter, he explains why. He even refused to attend the ceremony because the Oscars, according to John Gielgud, are “mutual congratulation baloney.”

Filmmaker and actor Woody Allen has been nominated for the Oscars a staggering 24 times. Allen won the coveted award 4 times. Most of the movies that made him one of the Oscar Winners did so in the best Original Screenplay category. Even before Woody Allen won the Oscars for Annie Hall, he was very vocal about why the Oscars are useless:

“The whole concept of awards is silly. I cannot abide the judgment of other people, because if you accept it when they say you deserve an award, then you have to accept it when they say you don’t.”