Sooner Influence at the Academy Awards

The 84th Annual Academy Awards are this coming Sunday, February, 26, 2012.  The Academy Awards Show is the oldest award ceremony in the media.  Those nominated in each of the ceremony's categories are considered the best of the best.  And the cliche "it's an honor just to be nominated" rings true for many.

Throughout its history, some Sooners have been recognized on this prestigious evening.  And what better time to take a look at them than right before this year's awards are handed out.

Van Heflin:

Emmett Evan "Van" Heflin, Jr. graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1932 with a Bachelor in Arts and Sciences.  Also while here, he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.  He made his film debut in 1936 in A Woman Rebels.  He went on to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1942 for Johnny Eager.  Other notable films he was in include the 1953 classic western, Shane, Possessed (1947), The Three Musketeers (1948) and 3:10 to Yuma (1957).


Ed Harris:

Edward Allen "Ed" Harris was a Sooner from Summer 1971 to the Summer of 1973.  Though he did not graduate, he studied theater while here and then moved to Los Angeles to find work.  He is now an actor, writer and director known for performances in Appaloosa, The Rock, The Abyss, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence and The Truman Sow.  He has also narrated commercials for The Home Depot as well as other companies.  He is a three-time Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actor for Apollo 13 (1995), The Truman Show (1998) and The Hours (2002).  He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2000 for the title role in Pollock.  Fun fact for everyone, he still has a brother living in Norman, OK.  Boomer Sooner!


James Garner:

James Garner is perhaps one of the most iconic actors of our time.  He's also a huge Sooner fan! In 1995 he received an honorary doctorate degree of Humane Letters.  He accepted this degree one month after the OKC Murrah Building bombing.  During the speech he gave during the commencement ceremony, he said,

"If there's anything positive to come from this event, it is seeing the character, the toughness and the dignity of the Oklahoma people as they suffer the grief and carry on with their lives.  It makes every Oklahoman, where ever we are, to be PROUD to be an Oklahoman." 

He is the narrator on the intro video for the University of Oklahoma football team as they enter the stadium.  He also has a street named after him here: James Garner Avenue.


In 1986, James was an Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1985 film Murphy's Romance.  He's been in almost 100 movies and television shows as an actor and many others as producer and/or director.  Some of the most recent titles include Maverick (1994), My Fellow Americans (1996), Twilight (no, not that Twilight...this one was released in 1998), Space Cowboys (2000), Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002), The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration (2003) and The Notebook (2004).
  

This year at the Academy Awards:

An OU student will be in attendance!  Chinh Doan, an OU Journalism Senior and will get a first-hand account of all the glitz and glamor as some of Hollywood's finest are recognized.  Of the trip, she says, "I kept thinking, 'This is a dream. It's not really true, and if I tell people I'm going, I feel like it might get jinxed and it's not going to happen.'"

Doan said that an OU staff member helped her make the valuable connection.  "We went to lunch in L.A. when I was there for a broadcasting conference, and we stayed in touch ever since," she said.

Viewers can watch the Oscars on ABC Sunday at 6:00 p.m.