Here we see this year's Academy Awards "In Memoriam" reel, which actually looks better on YouTube than it did on the Oscar telecast. The TV show kept trying to get shots of the set and of Queen Latifah, who was singing the song…so a number of the folks being remembered seem forgotten in distant shots. (One wonders if that's the reason the Academy put it up on YouTube and in embeddable form. Usually, they don't put up full segments like this and you can't embed them.)
As usual, there are those grousing that some who should have been in the montage were omitted. Patrick McGoohan was in some pretty good movies and George Carlin was in more than you might think…but neither was included. Nor was Eartha Kitt. Nor was composer Neal Hefti. Nor were Harvey Korman, Earle Hagen, Mel Ferrer, Alexander Courage, John Phillip Law, Irving Brecher, George Furth, Beverly Garland or Guy McElwaine. There were several studio execs and one publicist included but not Bernie Brillstein.
But the startling omission, of course, was Don LaFontaine, who not only became a superstar of movie trailers but also served as the announcer of the Oscars several years. Don may have sold more movie tickets than everyone else in the segment combined. Here's who they did include…
