Remembering Martin Landau’s 1995 Oscar win
The legendary film and TV actor Martin Landau passed away at the age of 89. Landau who was trained at the famed Actor’s studio enjoyed a versatile and much respected career in Hollywood that spanned through more than 5 decades.
One of his early roles was in Alfred Hitchcock thriller North by Northwest but later on he went to appear in a wide variety of movies, including Cleopatra, The Greatest Story Ever Told, A Town Called Hell, Treasure Island, Tucker: The Man And His Dream, Crimes And Misdemeanors, Sleepy Hollow.
His first Academy Award nomination was for Tucker: The Man and His Dream, his second for Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, but the talented actor managed to grab the Oscar on his third attempt. Landau won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood.
Few of the last movies in his career were released before his death. Movies like the comedy/drama The Last Poker Game, but there are two more movies that are waiting releases in the months to come. The SF romance Without Ward and Nate & Al in which Landau shares the screen with another Academy Award winner, Richard Dreyfuss.
Years before he started his acting career, the Brooklyn native worked in the New York Daily News as a staff cartoonist and illustrator. After his admission into the Actor’s Studio, he studied acting with Steve McQueen, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. He’s also one of the rare actors in Hollywood that received 3 Oscar nominations for portraying 3 different real people.
He won his first and only Oscar for playing Bella Lugosi, and this is a remembrance of that win in 1995.
RIP Martin Landau.
