30th Academy Awards


The 30th Academy Awards ceremony was held on March 26, 1958, to honor the best films of 1957.
Two violent deaths surrounded the Oscars during this ceremony. A plane crash took the life of producer Mike Todd, ending the then-latest marriage of Elizabeth Taylor, at that time a contender for the film Raintree County. Lana Turner, in the running for Peyton Place, would soon be embroiled in a major scandal when Johnny Stompanato, her boyfriend, was killed in her Beverly Hills home. The Best Actress award, however, was won by a relative newcomer, Joanne Woodward, who made her own dress for the occasion, causing presenter Joan Crawford to remark that she was "setting the cause of Hollywood glamour back twenty years by making her own clothes".
As in the previous year, the blacklisting of certain writers led to anomalies in the writing awards. The Academy Award for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium was awarded to Pierre Boulle for The Bridge on the River Kwai, despite the fact that he did not speak English, because the actual writers, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, were blacklisted at the time and had not received screen credit. Foreman and Wilson have since been acknowledged by the academy as the true recipients of the award, though Boulle remains listed as an official winner.
Peyton Place tied the record for the most nominations without a win set by The Little Foxes. This record would stand until 1977 when The Turning Point received 11 nominations without a win, which is the record to date. Peyton Place also set the record for most unsuccessful acting nominations, with five; this record has been tied once, by Tom Jones at the 36th Academy Awards.
For the first time in Oscar history, during the time period when Best Picture was limited to five nominees, the Best Director nominees aligned completely with the Best Picture nominees. This would only occur four more times before the Best Picture category's re-expansion in 2009. As of the 97th Academy Awards, Designing Woman is the last film to win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay when nominated solely in that category.

Awards

Nominees were announced on February 18, 1958. Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.

  • David Lean – The Bridge on the River Kwai
  • *Sidney Lumet – 12 Angry Men
  • *Mark Robson – Peyton Place
  • *Joshua Logan – Sayonara
  • *Billy Wilder – Witness for the Prosecution
  • Alec Guinness – The Bridge on the River Kwai as Colonel Nicholson
  • *Marlon Brando – Sayonara as Major Lloyd "Ace" Gruver
  • *Anthony Franciosa – A Hatful of Rain as Polo Pope
  • *Charles Laughton – Witness for the Prosecution as Sir Wilfrid Robarts Q.C.
  • *Anthony Quinn – Wild Is the Wind as Gino
  • Joanne Woodward – The Three Faces of Eve as Eve White/Eve Black/Jane
  • *Deborah Kerr – Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison as Sister Angela
  • *Anna Magnani – Wild Is the Wind as Gioia
  • *Elizabeth Taylor – Raintree County as Susanna Drake
  • *Lana Turner – Peyton Place as Constance MacKenzie
  • Red Buttons – Sayonara as Airman Joe Kelly
  • *Vittorio De Sica – A Farewell to Arms as Major Alessandro Rinaldi
  • *Sessue Hayakawa – The Bridge on the River Kwai as Colonel Saito
  • *Arthur Kennedy – Peyton Place as Lucas Cross
  • *Russ Tamblyn – Peyton Place as Norman Page
  • Miyoshi Umeki – Sayonara as Katsumi Kelly
  • *Carolyn Jones – The Bachelor Party as The Girl
  • *Elsa Lanchester – Witness for the Prosecution as Miss Plimsoll
  • *Hope Lange – Peyton Place as Selena Cross
  • *Diane Varsi – Peyton Place as Allison MacKenzie
  • Designing Woman – George Wells
  • *Funny Face – Leonard Gershe
  • *I Vitelloni – Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli and Ennio Flaiano
  • *Man of a Thousand Faces – Ralph Wheelwright, R. Wright Campbell, Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts
  • *The Tin Star – Barney Slater, Joel Kane and Dudley Nichols
  • The Bridge on the River Kwai – Michael Wilson, Carl Foreman and Pierre Boulle based on the novel by Pierre Boulle
  • *12 Angry Men – Reginald Rose based on his teleplay
  • *Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison – John Lee Mahin and John Huston from the novel by Charles Shaw
  • *Peyton Place – John Michael Hayes based on the novel by Grace Metalious
  • *Sayonara – Paul Osborn based on the novel by James Michener
  • Nights of Cabiria
  • *Mother India
  • *The Devil Strikes at Night
  • *Gates of Paris
  • *Nine Lives
  • Albert Schweitzer
  • *On the Bowery
  • *Torero!
  • The Wetback Hound
  • *A Chairy Tale
  • *City of Gold
  • *Foothold on Antarctica
  • *Portugal
  • Birds Anonymous
  • *One Droopy Knight
  • *Tabasco Road
  • *Trees and Jamaica Daddy
  • *The Truth About Mother Goose
  • The Bridge on the River Kwai – Malcolm Arnold
  • *An Affair to Remember – Hugo Friedhofer
  • *Boy on a Dolphin – Hugo Friedhofer
  • *Perri – Paul J. Smith
  • *Raintree County – Johnny Green
  • "All the Way" from The Joker Is Wild – Music by Jimmy Van Heusen; Lyrics by Sammy Cahn
  • *"An Affair to Remember" from An Affair to Remember – Music by Harry Warren; Lyrics by Leo McCarey and Harold Adamson
  • *"April Love" from April Love – Music by Sammy Fain; Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster
  • *"Tammy" from Tammy and the Bachelor – Music and Lyrics by Ray Evans and Johnny Livingston
  • *"Wild Is the Wind" from Wild Is the Wind – Music by Dimitri Tiomkin; Lyrics by Ned Washington
  • Sayonara – George Groves
  • *Gunfight at the O.K. Corral – George Dutton
  • *Les Girls – Wesley C. Miller
  • *Pal Joey – John P. Livadary
  • *Witness for the Prosecution – Gordon E. Sawyer
  • Les Girls – Orry-Kelly
  • *An Affair to Remember – Charles LeMaire
  • *Funny Face – Edith Head and Hubert de Givenchy
  • *Pal Joey – Jean Louis
  • *Raintree County – Walter Plunkett
  • Sayonara – Art Direction: Ted Haworth; Set Decoration: Robert Priestley
  • *Funny Face – Art Direction: Hal Pereira and George W. Davis; Set Decoration: Samuel M. Comer and Ray Moyer
  • *Les Girls – Art Direction: William A. Horning and Gene Allen; Set Decoration: Edwin B. Willis and Richard Pefferle
  • *Pal Joey – Art Direction: Walter Holscher; Set Decoration: William Kiernan and Louis Diage
  • *Raintree County – Art Direction: William A. Horning and Urie McCleary; Set Decoration: Edwin B. Willis and Hugh Hunt
  • The Bridge on the River Kwai – Jack Hildyard
  • *An Affair to Remember – Milton Krasner
  • *Funny Face – Ray June
  • *Peyton Place – William C. Mellor
  • *Sayonara – Ellsworth Fredericks
  • The Bridge on the River Kwai – Peter Taylor
  • *Gunfight at the O.K. Corral – Warren Low
  • *Pal Joey – Viola Lawrence and Jerome Thoms
  • *Sayonara – Arthur P. Schmidt and Philip W. Anderson
  • *Witness for the Prosecution – Daniel Mandell
  • The Enemy Below – Walter Rossi
  • *The Spirit of St. Louis – Louis Lichtenfield
  • Honorary Awards

    Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award

    Presenters and performers

    Presenters

    Performers

    Multiple nominations and awards

    NominationsFilm
    10Sayonara
    9Peyton Place
    8The Bridge on the River Kwai
    6Witness for the Prosecution
    4An Affair to Remember
    4Funny Face
    4Pal Joey
    4Raintree County
    312 Angry Men
    3Les Girls
    3Wild is the Wind
    2Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
    2Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
    2-

    AwardsFilm
    7The Bridge on the River Kwai
    4Sayonara