Hollywood award ceremonies often find themselves under scrutiny for one reason or another. In some cases, their responsibilities as a high-status awarding body demand that they become more inclusive with their nominees. In other cases, the whole awards industry comes under fire for its trivial redundancy. But there have been instances in which the refusal to accept an award has brought powerful meaning to the ceremony itself, by using the platform to shed light on more important topics.
In only three instances, the Academy has awarded Oscars only to have the winner outright refuse the award. In 1932, screenwriter Dudley Nichols won the Best Screenplay Oscar for The Informer but refused it due to the ongoing writers' strike. George C. Scott rejected two nominations from the Academy including his winning 1971 turn in Patton. In a telegram to the Academy, Scott asked for his name to be pulled from the ballot, describing the Oscars as "a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons.” Perhaps most famously, Marlon Brandorefused his 1973 Oscar for The Godfather, instead sending Sacheen Littlefeather to accept the award on his behalf and using his speech time to address the mistreatment of Native Americans.
However, one similar case rings very differently when witnessed in real time. In 1998, when Ving Rhames won his Golden Globe, he opted to gift it to his fellow-nominee Jack Lemmon immediately. Not in protest, and without diminishing the ceremony or awarding body, Rhames saw the value of the award and wanted to pay it forward, refusing the award himself, and seeing the positivity it could bring to award it to the actor he saw worthy of the statuette. But the act did also spur some backlash.
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Ving Rhames and Jack Lemmon Were Both Nominated in 1998
In 1997, HBO released a TV movie called Don King: Only in America based on the non-fiction book by Jack Newfield. It recounts the story of boxing promoter Don King as played by Rhames, detailing the icon's life and career. At this time, Rhames had already made a name for himself by starring as Marcellus Wallace in 1994's Pulp Fiction, and as Luther Stickell in 1996's Mission: Impossible (a role he would continue to reprise in every installation of the franchise to this day). Unlike in these prior roles, however, Don King allowed Rhames to take center stage, and show the world (and the Hollywood Foreign Press) what immense talent the actor had. He was nominated in 1998 alongside Matthew Modine as Sammy Ayres in What the Deaf Man Heard, Gary Sinise for the titular role in TNT's George Wallace, Armand Assante as Ulysses in NBC's adaptation of The Odyssey, and of course, screen icon Jack Lemmon.
Jack Lemmon is an actor perhaps best known for his comedy performances in 1959's Some Like It Hot and 1960's The Apartment. Later in his career, he became equally renowned for his more dramatic roles, starring in 1992's Glengarry Glen Ross among others. In 1997, he starred as Juror #8 in the William Friedkin-directed remake of12 Angry Men, the role played by Henry Fonda in the 1957 version. This TV movie saw Lemmon collaborate with George C. Scott, and earned Lemmon a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Made-for-TV Movie.
Ving Rhames' Golden Globe Speech Shocked the Room
As Alan Rickman and Jada Pinkett Smith took to the stage to present the award, they had no idea how events would soon transpire. The two read the names of the nominees and eventually announced Ving Rhames as the winner of that Golden Globe. When he took to the stage to make a speech, he was fighting tears. Clearly, the weight and honor of winning the statuette were not lost on Rhames, making it all the more powerful that he almost immediately gave it away. He began by asking the audience to give his fellow nominees another round of applause. Rhames proceeded by quoting Russian theater practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski, stating, "Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art." To further express his belief in this sentiment he asked whether his fellow nominee and screen legend Jack Lemmonwas in the audience. Upon spotting Lemmon, Rhames asked the actor to join him onstage, warranting surprised and enthusiastic standing ovations from famous audience members such as Jim Carrey. But not even the creators of fantasy movies were prepared for what would happen next.
Lemmon took to the stage to roaring applause and he and Rhames wrapped an arm around each other in embrace. Before Rhames could elaborate, Lemmon eyed the statuette and innocently joked, "Don't give me that!" But after further elaboration from Rhames, he did just that. "I feel that being an artist is about giving, and I'd like to give this to you, Mr. Jack Lemmon." During the ensuing applause, Jack Nicholson can be seen in the audience gesturing for Lemmon to now give it to him! The Golden Globes still recognizes Rhames as the official winner, but his gesture honoring Lemmon will always remain a part of award show history.
Why Did Ving Rhames Give His Golden Globe Away?
To this day, the answer as to why Rhames did it is still unclear. Beyond the explanation given by Rhames at the time, very little is known as to what statement the actor was making. He clearly held enormous respect for the screen legend and felt that Lemmon deserved it, but since then, the world has speculated whether it was the right thing to do. Many award-winners have sung the praises of their fellow nominees during their speech; notably, Peter Dinklage noted during his improvised 2015 acceptance speech that, "I wasn't prepared because, the other actors in my category, I'm still sort of awed by all of their performances. Jonathan Banks. And the rest." But Dinklage still held onto his Emmy, unlike Rhames, and the act of gifting his Golden Globe to Lemmon spurred backlash from some people.
Shadow and Act reported, "There were those who thought it was embarrassing, and even stupid, for Rhames to have done that, given how terribly infrequent it is that Black actors win anything at these major awards ceremonies; and so the act of a Black actor willingly giving his earned recognition to a white actor he felt was more deserving, was, for some, reflective of a 'colonized mind'." Later in the 2000 movie Bamboozled, African American filmmaker and activist Spike Lee included a dream sequence in which the character Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) gives his Oscar to Matthew Modine (who was also nominated alongside Lemmon and Rhames). This was in reference to the awards show two years prior, and was a joke at Rhames' expense. When asked about this in a Newsweek interview, Lee admitted, “When you give your award to a man you never met in your life, what do you expect? That sent chills down my spine, to see him do that to an award he earned.”
Lemmon himself, however, saw it as the beautiful gesture it was intended to be. After unsuccessfully trying to return the award to Rhames, Lemmon stated, “That is one of the nicest, sweetest moments I’ve ever known in my life, seriously. And if you think you appreciate the art in someone else, man, we appreciate the art in you — that performance was brilliant!” The New York Times also commended Rhames' gesture, applauding that he "demonstrated his capacity for abundant generosity." Later, the Hollywood Foreign Press announced that a duplicate of the award had been made so that Rhames (as the official winner) could also own the statuette. As it turned out, Jack Lemmon later won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television on his own merit. His role in Inherit The Wind earned the actor the statuette officially in 2000, one year before his passing.
