Best Supporting Actor 1958

[Big Magilla]

Chevalier was campaigned in lead. Gingold's omission was a headscratcher. She and Peggy Cass, who was nominated for Auntie Mame campaigned incessantly on late night TV. One campaign worked, one didn't.

[Reza]

I think Maurice Chevalier would have easily won if he had been nominated for Gigi. And wonder how Hermione Gingold also missed out for a nod for the same film.

[dws1982]

I just watched The Big Country essentially for the first time recently. I think I've seen it before, either partially or fully, but forgot most of it. I thought it was great and that Burl Ives, in particular, was great in it. I actually prefer him in this to him in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof although he would've been deserving of recognition for either.

[flipp525]

Yeah, I figured you just forgot!

[Big Magilla]

I’m not sure whether Donat's performance opposite Ingrid Bergman in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness was considered a lead but posthumous nominations in the supporting categories didn't happen until Ralph Richardson in 1984 and haven't happened since.

Heath Ledger received a posthumous Best Supporting Oscar for The Dark Knight.

Of course! I had a feeling I forgot someone.

[flipp525]

I’m not sure whether Donat's performance opposite Ingrid Bergman in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness was considered a lead but posthumous nominations in the supporting categories didn't happen until Ralph Richardson in 1984 and haven't happened since.

Heath Ledger received a posthumous Best Supporting Oscar for The Dark Knight.

[Reza]

I've since changed my opinion on Burl Ives' win. His win for The Big Country was deserved. He is vicious at the start and then absolutely heartbreaking towards the end of the film (which is magnificent and one of Wyler's most underrated). There is more depth to his performance here than in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

[Big Magilla]

If I were to amend my comments from twelve years ago, I would call this one of the most disappointing years in this category. Calling it the absolute worst was probably unfair.

As I pointed out then, the rules in 1958 were different than they were in 2012 and things have only gotten more difficult for true character performances to be nominated now.

The supporting performances we best acknowledge now were the five Reza named as the best - Chevalier, Donat, Ives (in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Walston, and Welles. At the time, however, Chevalier, Ives, and Walston were all considered co-leads in their films as was Welles, but Touch of Evil at the time was considered a flop and he likely wouldn't have been nominated anyway. I'm not sure whether Donat's performance opposite Ingrid Bergman in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness was considered a lead but posthumous nominations in the supporting categories didn't happen until Ralph Richardson in 1984 and haven't happened since. Today, of course, a Caucasian actor wouldn't be cast as a Chinese mandarin, let alone be in the running for an Oscar.

Both Chevalier and Ives lucked out, Ives with a win for The Big Country in which he was submitted in support, and Chevalier with an honorary Oscar.

While the actual nominees may have faded over the years, they were all very familiar to the general public at the time.

Theodore Bikel, like Ives, was equally well-known as a folksinger with a current hit album ("Songs of a Russian Gypsy") that remained popular throughout the 1960s. He was one of the founders of the Newport Folk Festival in 1959 and a major supporter of JFK for president in addition to nabbing the male lead in the original 1959 production of The Sound of Music. Cobb and Kennedy were acting legends whose fame may have faded but was still potent in 1958, more than ten years after Kennedy played Cobb's son in the original Broadway run of Death of a Salesman. Gig Young, in addition to his screen credits, was constantly on TV at the time.

It's been a long time since I've seen Cobb in either The Brothers Karamazov or Man of the West, but if I had to pick the late 1950s film for which he most deserved an Oscar nomination it would be 1957's 12 Angry Men.

The most prophetic line any of the nominated actors spoke in 1958 was the one uttered by Young in a 1958 episode of Studio One called A Dead Ringer in which he asked, "Do I look like a man who would murder his own wife?" which is something he did in real life twenty years later when he murdered his fifth wife of less than three weeks and then took his own with his Oscar for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? on the nightstand beside the bed.

[mlrg]

Having just seen Man of the West for the first time I think Lee J. Cobb should have been nominated for supporting actor for this film instead of The Brothers Karamazov.

[FilmFan720]

I can't really chime in here, but will add how much I wish Damien was here to tell us all how wrong we are about Arthur Kennedy in Some Came Running!

[Mister Tee]

I don’t see why people are getting so exercised about this particular year. As I’ve said in the past week or so: I find the entire decade of the 50s dull in this category. The ’58 batch is just run of the mill for the era.

I’ll back up Italiano’s take on Theodore Bikel: it’s not a performance anyone would pluck from a lesser movie, but, as a solid piece of support in one of the year’s top movies, it’s well within standard Oscar range. I don’t vote for him, but he gets my respect.

Likewise, Teacher’s Pet is a fairly typical 50s, Can Doris protect her virginity? comedy, but Gig Young’s performance is of the skilled comic sort the Oscars are generally berated for ignoring. Obviously it makes sense (in Oscar win terms) to wait for Young’s breakthrough dramatic performance 11 years on, but this is quite respectable work.

Truth be told, it’s so long since I watched The Brothers Karamazov that I can’t weigh in on whether Lee J. Cobb is as over the top as some are claiming. But I can’t say I was wowed by him in any way, and the film in general was no more than a once-lightly gloss on Dostoyefsky.

This might be a spot for me to indulge my oft-expressed fondness for Arthur Kennedy, but, in honesty, I don’t find his Some Came Running work all that interesting. And…

…I just don’t think Burl Ives can be denied in this year. Of course, it’d be better if he were honored for his most famous character, in Cat. But his role in The Big Country had plenty enough on its own for him to merit the prize. I can’t say I’ve sat down and watched the whole film anytime recently – it’s too damn long to commit to – but I’ve dropped in on the scene where he crashes the fancy party, and his commanding monologue there is the sort that’s been winning supporting Oscars for years, even unto this day. Combined with the more-than-extra credit of Big Daddy, I say Burl Ives was clearly the top supporting actor of 1958, and he gets my vote here.

[Big Magilla]

Gig Young plays a variation of a role which was so popular in 50s comedies - the "Tony Randall" role - and does it nicely, but seen today the movie (which must have been a big hit back then) isn't very funny.

I know that's what that type of role is now called, but it's always struck me as odd because Young played those types of roles first and more often. It only became the "Tony Randall" role after Pillow Talk which was a year after Teacher's Pet. Young also played the same part in 1958's Tunnel of Love as well as the previus year's Desk Set and would play it again in Ask Any Girl; That Touch of Mink and Strange Bedfellows whereas Ranall only played similar roles in addition to Pillow Talk in Lover Come Back and Send Me No Flowers.

The film itself isn't half bad even though Clark Gable was old enough to be Doris Day's father and by that time was starting to look it.

[ITALIANO]

No, they aren't THAT bad. It's difficult to make a choice because they are more or less on the same level, but they aren't that bad.

Theodore Bikel was certainly nominated because he was in one of the important movies of the year. Pivotal role, correctly played but not, I'd say, a performance for the ages.

Burl Ives has a "big" but not too interesting character in The Big Country but he actually won for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Gig Young plays a variation of a role which was so popular in 50s comedies - the "Tony Randall" role - and does it nicely, but seen today the movie (which must have been a big hit back then) isn't very funny.

For me, it's between two of the greatest character actors of the 50s - Lee J. Cobb and Arthur Kennedy. Cobb does overact in The Brothers Karamazov, but that's because the man he plays is like that - a hypocritical buffoon. (Interesting how Dostoevski gave this repulsive character his own name, by the way). Arthur Kennedy does the opposite - he plays an even too ordinary man and gives what at first sight might be mistaken for an ordinary performance, but it's actually a quite subtle one.

I will pick Kennedy, but Cobb isn't bad either.

[Reza]

The best supporting performance of the year, hands down, was Maurice Chevalier's in Gigi. I think the studio may have submitted his name in the Best Actor category which is why his name does not show up on the lists as this category had strong candidates. In any case Chevalier was awarded an Honorary Oscar this year so that is some compensation although he should have been on the supporting list as well. Of the actual nominees this is a weak list. Burl Ives, who won for The Big Country and is quite good, should have been nominated instead for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof where he plays the memorable role of Big Daddy which he had created on Broadway. Lee J. Cobb is insufferable as the old father of The Brothers Karamazov and, as always, his overacting is unbearable to watch. Gig Young and Theodore Bikel are fillers. Arthur Kennedy was always a very welcome presence in films and his five nominations attest to that. He is the only one of the nominees who deserved to be on the list apart from Ives even though this was not one of his great performances.

I voted for Ives here by default.

My picks for 1958:

Maurice Chevalier, Gigi
Burl Ives, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Robert Donat, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
Ray Walston, Damn Yankees
Orson Welles, Touch of Evil

The 6th Spot: Arthur Kennedy, Some Came Running

[Big Magilla]

This was the absolute worst year ever in this cateogry. The only one who desrved a nomination was, as Ryan points out, Burl Ives, but that was for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, not The Big Country, although he is good in that as well. He was most likely submitted as lead for Cat by MGM. The same is true of Maurice Chevlaier in Gigi and probably Ray Walston in Damn Yankees as well. That should have left room for a posthumous nomination for Robert Donat in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness and some of the wonderful character actors who supported Spencer Tracy in The Last Hurrah, most notably Pat O'Brien, James Gleason and Donald Crisp.

There really is nothing good I can say about any of the actual nominees other than Ives. Some Came Running is my least favorite Minnelli film and Arthur Kennedy's least impressive work in any of his nominated films. Theodore Bikel does absolutely nothing award worthy in The Defiant Ones. Lee J. cobb is loud and obnoxious in The Brothers Karamazov and Gig Young is playing Gig Young or the affable good guy everyone assumed he was at the time of Teacher's Pet. His character is basically the same one he played in the preious year's Desk Set and would play again in numerous other films until They Shoot Horses, Don;t They? gave him something to sink his teeth into.