Oscar Acceptance Speech Fun Facts 2015: Things To Know Before 87th Academy Awards

The 87th Academy Awards presentation by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be shown live on ABC Sunday. With Neil Patrick Harris as the host, the 2015 show will originate at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. Some of the most memorable parts of any Oscars presentation are the acceptance speeches. Find out some fun facts about what celebrities throughout time have said after winning, partly thanks to HSBC Bank USA N.A., which did some research through its Together, We Advance campaign.

Almost everybody knows Joe Pesci had a short acceptance speech when he won the Best Supporting Actor award for “Goodfellas” in 1991 -- five words, to be exact -- but he’s not the only one apparently enamored of brevity. In 1968, Alfred Hitchcock also uttered five words when he accepted the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. Even more economically, Patty Duke simply said, “Thank you,” when she won the Best Supporting Actress award for “The Miracle Worker” in 1968.

Although there have been 87 Academy Awards shows, the first recorded acceptance speech was delivered by the ever-glamorous Vivien Leigh, who won recognition as Best Actress for “Gone With the Wind” in 1939. The only person to whom she expressed appreciation was producer David O. Selznick. Flash forward to 2013: Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence thanked “Silver Linings Playbook” producer Harvey Weinstein each of the three times she appeared on stage.

It recent years, it has been common for actors to thank their mothers. They even did it twice as often in 2014 when compared to 2004. But the first person to ever thank her mother was Greer Garson, who was honored as Best Actress for “Mrs. Miniver” in 1942. In contrast, fathers get fewer shout-outs, with the first dad being thanked when Ernest Borgnine won the Best Actor award for “Marty” in 1955.

Robert De Niro not only thanked his mother and father but also his grandmother and grandfather when he accepted the Best Actor award for “Raging Bull” in 1980.

Halle Berry arguably had one of the best acceptance speeches in the history of the Oscars, when she became the first black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2002. She thanked other black women for helping to make her win possible, saying: “This moment is so much bigger than me. This is for every nameless, faceless woman of color who now has a chance tonight because this door has been opened.”

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