The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in the film industry. They are regarded as the most prestigious and significant awards in the entertainment industry worldwide. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar". The statuette depicts a knight rendered in the Art Deco style.
Charles William Mumy Jr. is an American actor, writer and musician and a figure in the science-fiction community/comic book fandom. He came to prominence in the 1960s as a child actor, which included television appearances on The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and a role in the film Dear Brigitte, followed by an iconic three-season role as Will Robinson in the 1960s CBS sci-fi series Lost in Space.
Nancy Sandra Sinatra is an American singer and actress. She is the elder daughter of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra, and is perhaps best known for her 1966 signature hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'".
Adam Richard Sandler is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He was a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1990 to 1995, before going on to star in many Hollywood films, which have combined to earn more than $2 billion at the box office. Sandler had an estimated net worth of $420 million in 2020, and signed a further four-movie deal with Netflix worth over $250 million.
Clyde Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 18 million albums in the United States.
Los Lobos is an American rock band from East Los Angeles, California. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, zydeco, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños. The band gained international stardom in 1987, when their version of Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba" topped the charts in the U.S., the UK and several other countries. Songs by Los Lobos have been recorded by Waylon Jennings and Frankie Yankovic. In 2015, they were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2018, they were inducted into Austin City Limits Hall of Fame. They are also known for performing the theme song for Handy Manny.
Luther Ronzoni Vandross Jr. was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is noted for his sweet and soulful vocals. Throughout his career, Vandross was an in-demand background vocalist for several different artists including Todd Rundgren, Judy Collins, Chaka Khan, Bette Midler, Diana Ross, David Bowie, Ben E. King, Stevie Wonder, and Donna Summer.
Robert Dean Stockwell is an American retired film and television actor with a career spanning over 70 years. As a child actor under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he first came to the public's attention in films such as Anchors Aweigh (1945), The Green Years (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and Kim (1950).
Jared Drake Bell, also known as Drake Campana, is an American actor, singer, songwriter, and musician. Born in Newport Beach, California, he began his career as an actor in the early 1990s at the age of five with his first televised appearance on Home Improvement, and also appeared in several commercials as a child. Bell is best known for his starring roles on Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show and Drake & Josh. He also starred in a trilogy of The Fairly OddParents movies on Nickelodeon. Bell was the voice of Peter Parker / Spider-Man in the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man on Disney XD.
Stanley Robert Vinton, better known by his stage name Bobby Vinton, is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. As a teen idol, he became known as 'The Polish Prince', as his music paid tribute to his Polish heritage. One of his most popular songs is "Blue Velvet" which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963 and No. 2 in the UK in 1990.
Julee A. Cruise is an American singer, songwriter, actress and musician, best known for her collaborations with composer Angelo Badalamenti and film director David Lynch in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She has released four albums and collaborated with a variety of other artists. She is known for her song "Falling", the theme song for the television series Twin Peaks. She is married to author and editor Edward Grinnan.
Glen Hansard is an Irish songwriter, actor, vocalist and guitarist for the Irish group The Frames, and one half of folk rock duo The Swell Season. He is known for his acting, having appeared in the BAFTA-winning film The Commitments, as well as starring in the film Once, which earned him a number of major awards, including the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Falling Slowly", with co-writer and co-star Markéta Irglová.
The Emotions were an American Grammy Award–winning soul/R&B vocal group from Chicago, Illinois. The group started out in gospel music but transitioned into R&B and disco music. The Emotions were named by VH1 as one of the 18 most influential girl groups of all time.
White Nights is a 1985 American musical drama film directed by Taylor Hackford and starring Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gregory Hines, Jerzy Skolimowski, Helen Mirren and Isabella Rossellini. It was choreographed by Twyla Tharp. The title refers to the sunlit summer nights of Leningrad, the setting for the majority of the film, situated just a few degrees below the Arctic Circle.
Andrew Wegman Bird is an American indie rock multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter. Since 1996, he has released 16 studio albums, as well as several live albums and EPs, spanning various genres including swing music, indie rock, and folk music. He is primarily known for his unique style of violin playing, accompanied by loop and effect pedals, whistling, and voice. In the 1990s, he sang and played violin in several jazz ensembles, including Squirrel Nut Zippers and Kevin O'Donnell's Quality Six. He went on to start his own swing ensemble, Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire, which released three albums between 1998 and 2001. Weather Systems (2003) was his first solo album, and a departure from jazz music into indie music. Bird's 2019 album My Finest Work Yet was nominated for "Best Folk Album" at the 2020 Grammy Awards.
KathleenYork is an American actress, screenwriter, and Oscar-nominated singer-songwriter recording artist. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "In the Deep" from the 2004 film Crash.
Samuel Kent Harris is an American pop and theater musician as well as a television, theater and film actor.
"Theme from Shaft", written and recorded by Isaac Hayes in 1971, is the soul and funk-styled theme song to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Shaft. The theme was released as a single two months after the movie's soundtrack by Stax Records' Enterprise label. "Theme from Shaft" went to number two on the Billboard Soul Singles chart and to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States in November 1971. The song was also well received by adult audiences, reaching number six on Billboard's Easy Listening chart. The song is considered by some to be one of the first disco songs.
"Falling Slowly" is a song in the indie folk and indie rock genres that was written, composed and performed by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. The song was featured on the soundtrack of the 2007 Irish musical romance film Once, which starred Hansard and Irglová, and for which it won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 80th Academy Awards. The song was also recorded by Hansard's band The Frames.
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film. The performers of a song are not credited with the Academy Award unless they contributed either to music, lyrics, or both in their own right. The songs that are nominated for this award are typically performed during the ceremony and before this award is presented.
