‘La La Land’ producer also star of Oscar gaffe

OWN CORRESPONDENT

“La La Land”’s Jewish  producer Horowitz was in the midst of his acceptance speech for winning the Best Picture award on Sunday night, when he found out that he and his cast were mistakenly called up by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty and in fact the winner was “Moonlight”.  The presenters had been given the wrong envelope by tabulators PwC.

Horowitz, holding someone else’s statuette, realised the mistake when he was approached onstage by Academy security. “I’m going to be really proud to hand this to my friends from ‘Moonlight’,” Horowitz said, raising the golden Oscar statuette that he had been handed.

The very Jewish cast of “La La Land” still took home six Oscars, after being nominated for 14, tying the record set by “All About Eve” and “Titanic”.

Emma Stone won Best Actress for her performance in “La La Land”, beating Jewish actresses Natalie Portman and Isabelle Huppert. Casey Affleck won Best Actor for his role in “Manchester By the Sea”; in the category of Best Supporting Actress, Viola Davis won for her role in “Fences”, and Mahershala Ali won for his performance in “Moonlight”.

During his acceptance speech, Ali thanked his teacher Zelda Fichandler, a Jewish stage producer, director and educator, who was chairman of the graduate acting programme and Master Teacher of Acting and Directing at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

Damien Chazelle, who won Best Director for “La La Land”, grew up in a Catholic household in Princeton, New Jersey, but attended Hebrew school for four years after his parents became dissatisfied with his religious education at a church Sunday school.

Composer Justin Hurwitz, Chazelle’s Jewish roommate at Harvard University, won for Best Original Score and for Best Original song for “City of Stars”, from “La La Land”. Benj Pasek, who is Jewish, and Justin Paul wrote the song’s lyrics.

Kenneth Lonergan, whose mother and stepfather are Jewish, took home an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for “Manchester By the Sea”.

Ezra Edelman, who with Caroline Waterlow won in the category Best Documentary Feature for “OJ: Made in America”, is the son of Marian Wright Edelman and Peter Edelman, among the founders of the New Israel Fund.

“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, based on the 2001 book by Harry Potter series author J K Rowling, which features two Jewish characters, took an Oscar in the Best Costume Design category.

Among the actors who died since the last Academy Awards ceremony were Jewish thespians Gene Wilder, Anton Yelchin, and Carrie Fisher.