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.Honorary Awards
- To Charles Brackett for outstanding service to the Academy.
- To B. B. Kahane for distinguished service to the motion picture industry.
- To Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson, motion picture pioneer, for his contributions to the development of motion pictures as entertainment.
- To The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers for their contributions to the advancement of the motion picture industry.
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
Presenters and performers
Presenters
- June Allyson
- Fred Astaire and Dana Wynter
- Ernest Borgnine and Cyd Charisse
- Joan Collins
- Gary Cooper
- Wendell Corey and Robert Ryan
- Bette Davis
- Doris Day and Clark Gable
- Anita Ekberg and Vincent Price
- Cary Grant
- Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones
- Van Johnson and Dorothy Malone
- Hope Lange and Ronald Reagan
- Sophia Loren
- Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
- Gregory Peck and Eva Marie Saint
- Anthony Quinn
- Lana Turner
- John Wayne
Performers
- Anna Maria Alberghetti, Ann Blyth, Shirley Jones, Tab Hunter, Jimmie Rodgers and Tommy Sands
- Vic Damone
- Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster
- Rock Hudson and Mae West
- Dean Martin
- Johnny Mathis
- Debbie Reynolds
Multiple nominations and awards
| Awards | Film |
| 7 | The Bridge on the River Kwai |
| 4 | Sayonara |