1970, Day Eleven: Actress

Notable notes in the Best Actress competition for 1970 include this fun gem: it is, as of this writing, the last time an entire lead acting category was made up of first-time nominees. C'est vrai! Jane Alexander and Glenda Jackson would each be nominated another three times, but both were having their breakthroughs. As for the other three, none of them would ever be nominated again: Sarah Miles, taking the lead role in previously-discussed Ryan's Daughter; Ali MacGraw, the leading lady in #1 hit Love Story; and Carrie Snodgress, making her big screen breakthrough in Diary of a Mad Housewife. That film follows an unappreciated middle-class wife and mother whose husband's social-climbing wears her down physically, mentally, emotionally. Then she becomes a writer's fuck-buddy and begins coming into her own. The movie is the performance, so let's discuss that...and the others:

1970, Day Two: Supporting Actor

Beautifully coiffed, her consonants cleanly crisp, reigning Best Actress winner Maggie Smith rolls out with a lineup of one-and-doners (plus Gene Hackman) before handing off the night's second competitive statuette to her fellow countryman:

John Mills' filmography spans 72 years and over 100 works, including In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Great Expectations, Oh! What a Lovely War (Hollmann Awards nominee, in fact!), and PBS's late-90s telecast of Cats. By the time Ryan's Daughter came out, he had been working 38 years, and fathered two successful actresses, Juliet and Hayley (of The Parent Trap and Tiger Bay). His win, though, was no sure thing.