Week of March 5: Oscar Nominees On the Small Screen

Sunday night will be the Academy Awards, Hollywood's shiniest night of the year.

Before all the glitter, it's fun to take a look back at the experience of some of the nominees on some classic (and not-so-classic) television shows.

Best Actor

*Who's that Easy Reader? Why it's nominee Morgan Freeman. Long before he was playing Nelson Mandela, Freeman was playing a number of characters on the first version of the PBS children's program "The Electric Company":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkwCynNm18c

*George Clooney's television contributions have been well-noted: Two versions of ER (one not-so-good on CBS as well as the classic NBC series), and, of course, "The Facts of Life":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIZ7ACvfwds

Not-so-classic mullets, either. :)


*Colin Firth is another actor with a classic television background, including everyone's favorite TV interpretation of the classic "Pride and Prejudice":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHNwtGBbODg&feature=PlayList&p=QP_6Bmwu4-8

I'll take you, Mr. Darcy; I'll take you.


Best Actress

*Helen Mirren's contribution to television is unquestioned. She set standards as Jane Tennison in "Prime Suspect," all of which was shown on PBS and is available on DVD (and begs yet another question: Like "The Rockford Files" and "Hawaii Five-O," why remake this when the original was so good?).

*"Working Girl," of course, is a classic Academy Award winning (for Carly Simon's song "Let the River Run") movie. It later became a series, with one of this year's nominees, Sandra Bullock:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crW8CVZ8f1M


*Meryl Streep has been a movie star almost since the beginning. But a year before she would win her first Oscar for "Kramer vs. Kramer," she starred in the groundbreaking NBC miniseries "Holocaust":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4ECsTESTxA



Best Supporting Actor

We conclude with Woody Harrelson, who joined the cast of "Cheers" in its third season, after the death of Nicholas Colasanto and the character he played, Coach. Look for Harrelson about five minutes in (and the added bonus of one of the greatest theme songs in television history):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpcWtujp9PE

Enjoy the Oscars. Until next week, Happy Viewing!