I agree Isabelle Adjani gave the year's best performance by a lead actress in 1975, but there's no way Louise Fletcher would have been nominated in support after all the hullabaloo preceding the nominations.Reza wrote:If Louise Fletcher had instead been nominated in the supporting category wonder who she would have bumped off the nominee's list and who would have taken her slot in the best actress category?mlrg wrote:AgreedSabin wrote:Louise Fletcher has no business being nominated for Best Lead Actress though, let alone winning. She's pretty good but this is clearly a supporting role.
Isabelle Adjani should have won
Her role had been conceived as a major star turn and was offered to Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Geraldine Page, Colleen Dewhurst, Angela Lansbury and just about every middle-aged actress in Hollywood, all of whom turned it down. Had any of those then very big stars played the part it surely would have garnered them a lead nomination, not a supporting one. To add insult to injury, Burstyn, who won the year before for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore went on national TV and said they should suspend the best actress award that year because of the lack of good roles for women, which had all the columnists wondering whether she would have thought so if she had in fact played Nurse Ratched herself.
In addition, Lily Tomlin's role in Nashville had been written by and for Fletcher whose husband Jerry Bick was Robert Altman's producer. When the two men had a falling out Altman fired Fletcher even though she had nothing to do with the argument. Fletcher clearly had sentiment on her side.
But to answer the question, if they had relegated her to support, the one to have been bumped would have been either Sylvia Miles or Brenda Vaccaro, probably Vaccaro.