Here is a story I posted here on March 5, 2006. Read it and then I have an update at the end…
One of the possible disasters at the Oscars which has often been joked about but has never (they say) occurred is this: A presenter gets out there, opens the envelope and reads or announces the wrong name. There are rumors that a couple of the more unexpected winners have been crowned that way but it has never apparently happened.
There's a safety net set up to prevent this. The ballots are tallied by an accounting firm that is now called Price-Waterhouse-Cooper and there are two men on the premises from that firm. They travel to the Academy Awards via separate routes, each with a briefcase that contains a full set of the envelopes containing the winners' names. During the ceremony, one man is at stage left at the theater. One is at stage right. Presenters enter from both sides and when they do, they receive the envelope they'll be opening from the Price-Waterhouse-Cooper person on that side of the stage.
But the two accountants have another function. They've both memorized the full list of recipients and if a wrong name is read aloud, they're supposed to sound the alarm. There's some sort of code word for this. Near them always is a stage manager and if Jack Nicholson goes out there tonight and announces the wrong winner, the accountant will turn to the stage manager and give the code word. The stage manager will then relay this to the control room and then…
Well, no one outside the Oscarcast knows exactly what would happen but it's been planned and it's been rehearsed, just in case. My guess is that the orchestra leader would be told to stop the music and the host would be hurried out onto the stage to announce that a mistake had been made. The other Price-Waterhouse-Cooper man — the one who hadn't handed the envelope to the presenter — would open the one in his custody, make sure it had the correct name and then it would be hustled out to the host. But that's just my guess since it's never happened.
But it almost did one year…or so I was told by someone who worked on the broadcast. According to this person, a Very Famous Actor was presenting one of the most important Oscars. He was an older man and he got very confused and as a result, managed to announce the winner without opening the envelope.
His speech and the names of the nominees were on a TelePrompter but in rehearsals, he had trouble reading it. Just in case he needed it, he was provided with a card that had the five names. He had the card and the envelope in his hand as he entered.
When he got out to the podium, he found he couldn't read the prompter. Flustered and confused, he stumbled through his opening remarks from memory and then reached for the card with the nominees' names. As he did, he erred and instead of saying, "The nominees are…" he said, "The winner is…" Everyone assumed that he was forgetting to read the names of the nominees and had opened the envelope prematurely.
The nominees were listed on the card in alphabetical order and he read the first name there. The orchestra began playing the appropriate music. The winner jumped up and ran to the stage to accept. The Very Famous Actor, still a bit disoriented, assumed he'd done what he was supposed to do and stepped back.
The announced winner got to the stage and launched into his speech. He was a bit puzzled when he looked down and noticed that the envelope in his category was lying there on the podium, unopened. But he figured that since no one was stopping him, he must have won.
In the wings, a stage manager realized what had happened. Frantic, he turned to the accountant and asked who had won in that category. The accountant didn't see what his panic was all about. The winner was out there making his acceptance speech. By dumb luck, the victor in that category was the first name in alphabetical order.
Nothing was ever said, so as to not embarrass the Very Famous Actor. The Academy may even have been worried that some people would think the Oscar hadn't gone to the proper nominee and that they'd just gone along with it to avoid a nasty scene. But that's the only time I've ever heard of a glitch in the system and even that one turned out all right. I kinda hope that one of these days, some presenter actually does read the wrong name. I want to see what happens.
Okay, I'm back. I've decided it's okay to tell you who the Very Famous Actor was and what the movie was that won the Academy Award that year without the envelope being opened. The man who told me this story has passed on. It was Larry Gelbart, who was one of the producers of the ceremony that year. The rest of it will become obvious when you watch this clip. Watch the eyes of the gent accepting the Oscar and see if you can tell the moment when he noticed that the envelope was lying before him on the podium, unopened…