Is This The Best Oscar Photograph Ever Taken?
What does winning feel like the morning after?
Welcome to the *200th issue* of Curious Minds!
Whether you’ve been with me since I investigated Van Halen and the brown M&M’s back in 2021, or this is your first time reading Curious Minds, I appreciate you spending your valuable time exploring curiosity with me.
When I started this newsletter, I wanted to write a book.
I haven’t written the book (yet), but for 200 weeks, I’ve published a Curious Minds story.
I’ve learned a lot, and met some wonderful people (both subjects in my stories and readers) during that time.
So maybe I’ll grab a maraca and put on some “defiant jazz”to celebrate later!1
OK, on to today’s story!
Are you excited for the Oscars?
As a film buff, I’m always excited to watch the nominated movies and see who wins.
And as a communication professional, I look forward to the speeches!
I also enjoy reading about Old Hollywood — and the films, directors, and stars of the past.
It was when I was doing some research on the Oscars that I came across a picture of Faye Dunaway.
Her biggest Oscar moment of my lifetime was in 2017 — when she and her Bonnie and Clyde co-star Warren Beatty were given the wrong envelope as they took the stage to announce the Best Picture winner.
That was the year La La Land was announced — but the actual winner was Moonlight.
Dunaway’s biggest successes on screen — Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown, Network — were before my time.
But she’s on my mind because I recently saw a photo of her, taken the day after she won the Best Actress Oscar in 1977 for her role in the film Network.
The photograph is called “The Morning After.”
When I saw it, I knew there must be an interesting story behind it.
And I was curious…
In 1977, Terry O’Neill was a well-known British photographer who captured images that defined London’s “Swinging Sixties.”
He also took photographs of celebrities including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Frank Sinatra.
But in March that year, People magazine hired him to photograph the Best Actress winner at the 49th Academy Awards.
Faye Dunaway, the star of Network, was the frontrunner for the trophy.
Normally photographers captured the winner hugging their statue backstage.
But O’Neill, who had photographed Oscar winners before, wanted to do something different.
“I didn’t want to take the expected photo; the one with the actor holding the award, moments after, with a stunned expression,” O’Neill said.
“I wanted to capture something different.
“I wanted to capture that moment, the morning after.”
“I somehow convinced Faye to agree.”
The two had met a few weeks before the March 28th ceremony and, according to O’Neill “struck up a friendship.”
“She was the odds-on favorite to win an Oscar for her astonishing performance in Network,” he explained.
“I was asked to take a photo of the winner, so I convinced Faye to meet me at the pool [of the Beverly Hills Hotel] first thing the next morning.”
Despite being exhausted from the Oscar celebrations, Dunaway kept her promise – and met O’Neill by the hotel pool at dawn.
“She went to bed at 3 am and got up at 6 am,” O’Neill recalled in a 2015 interview with The Cut.
“She was great. The whole mood of it was great.
“It was the perfect thing that she was tired, because it was the morning after – literally, 6:30 in the morning.”
The pool area was empty, and O’Neill convinced the hotel staff to let them use the space for an hour before other guests arrived.
And as the sun began to light the sky, O’Neill set up his shot with his newly-crowned Oscar-winning actress.
“I wanted to capture the look of dazed confusion,” he told The Guardian in 2010, “to capture that state of utter shock that Oscar winners enter, where they go to bed thrilled, then overnight, it dawns on them that they’ve changed, that they’ve just become a star.
“And not just a star, a millionaire.”
Dunaway came to the shoot having barely slept, wearing an off-white satin robe and pair of black strappy high heels.
Sitting in a chair poolside, in the early morning light, she posed next to a table that held a breakfast tray with a teapot – and in the center of the table, her Oscar.
That morning’s newspapers were strewn by her feet, and also laid on the table.
O’Neill waited for Dunaway to look away, and then took his shot.
He also took other shots that morning, moving Dunaway around the table and having her lie down in a lounge chair.
“The other shots are just as interesting,” O’Neill said.
Dunaway recalled the shoot in her 2024 documentary Faye.
“I remember the moment,” Dunaway says in the documentary.
“What I love is ‘Is that all there is?’ was kind of the theme to it, because at my feet are all of the morning newspapers announcing the wins and also a posthumous Peter Finch Oscar because he passed away three months earlier.”
[Best Actor winner Finch was her co-star in Network.]
“So it was bittersweet.
“It was a classic place: Beverly Hills Hotel and swimming pool.
“So anyway, it was an amazing night, really crazy. Very very memorable.”
After The Morning After was taken, the connection between O’Neill and Dunaway grew.
They began a romantic relationship, eventually getting married and adopting a son in the early 1980s.
But their romance didn’t last.
O’Neill told The Guardian in a 2004 interview that he “hated the Hollywood lifestyle” and needed to “leave the marriage and come back to London.”
But when he was interviewed in 2010, he still had fond memories of the famous photograph he took of Dunaway the morning after her Oscar win.
“I look at this picture often, and I’m still so proud of it,” he said.
“It’s still the best Oscar picture ever taken.
“And modern photographers should take that as a challenge.”
O’Neill passed away in 2019. He was 81 years old.
One more thing…
Did I make a special trip to London’s National Portrait Gallery to see Terry O’Neill’s famous photograph up close?
Yes, yes I did.
But sadly, it was not on display…
(You can order a limited edition print…for £21,600.)
Here are a few more of Terry O’Neill’s photographs:
And you can see even more of his photographs here.
A little more Oscar history for you…
Actor Timothée Chalamet clearly wants to win an Oscar.
You know who else wanted to win an Oscar in 2011?
Melissa Leo.
And while they aren’t nominated for Oscars this year, I love this story about friends and former co-stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.
How Can I Help?
I’ll keep saying it: Communication matters.
Poor communication costs you — money, relationships and your reputation.
And if you want to improve your communication (and get all the good things that come with that), I’m your gal.
So many companies could reap significant benefits – from performance and culture to retention and engagement – by improving their communication.
So, if you know someone who could benefit from some help (as even the most seasoned leaders do), please get in touch and check out my website for more information.
You can also see my Top 10 list of what I can (and can’t) do for you here.
And if you see any communication examples (the good, the bad, and the ugly) that you think are worth analyzing or sharing, please send them my way!
Until next time, Stay Curious!
-Beth
In case you’re wondering what this means, it’s a reference to the TV show “Severance” - and a reward an employee received for good work.
Very cool article. I used to be a TV producer/writer and produced an interview with Faye Dunaway in 2018-2019 which was shot at a hotel. When she walked into the hotel suite for the interview, I stuck out my hand to introduce myself. She looked down at my hand with disdain and turned and walked away. She was a true professional for the interview but a complete B to me. I met and produced hundreds of celebrities in my career and she's in my top 3 worst.