LYNN AND PADDY: TOGETHER AGAIN FOR THE FIRST AND LAST TIME

As we near this year's Academy Awards (this Sunday I think?) I will continue posting weird, uncomfortable and sometimes just shameful moments in Oscar history. (If you've missed this series, s scroll down and look at the last seven or eight entires. A great way to avoid work for half an hour or so). Here's todays:

In 1977 Vanessa Redgrave funded and narrated a documentary film, 'The Palestinian' about the situation of Palestinians and the activities of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In the film 'Julia' (also made in 1977) she starred in the title role as a woman murdered by the Nazi German regime in the years prior to World War Two for her anti-Fascist activism. When Redgrave was nominated for an Oscar in 1978 for her role in 'Julia', members of the Jewish Defense League, led by Rabbi Meir Kahane,  burned effigies of Redgrave and picketed the ceremony to protest against her involvement in 'The Palestinian.' Redgrave won the Oscar and, accepting the award, thanked Hollywood for standing up against a bunch of...well, watch the speech and see what she says. After her entirely correct position was stated (directed at Kahane's brutally tasteless protest, which nobody seemed eager to denounce), Paddy Chayefsky (of all people) came on stage to scold Redgrave and have, effectively the last word. Both Redgrave's speech and Chayefsky's rebuke are posted above.

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