14 DAY TRIAL // Veteran actor Kirk Douglas made a rare appearance last night at the Oscars 2011 and managed, for the few minutes he was on stage before introducing the winner for Best Supporting Actress, to prove the world that he was still the same player as before.
Mr. Douglas, who suffered a stroke in the ‘90s that left him with a slight speech impediment, had no problems with delivering his lines and, in the process, flatter every woman in the audience, starting with the host and the nominees.
As the video here will confirm, Kirk began by paying his respect to the two hosts for the night, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, though, understandably, he paid a bit more attention to Anne than to James.
“Thank you very much,” Kirk said when he was welcomed on stage with a standing ovation. As a side note, he’s been nominated three times for an Oscar but never won, a fact he recalled later in his speech.
“And I want to thank James [Franco]. Thank you. You look much better out of the cave. And I want to thank Miss Hathaway. I thank you. She’s gorgeous! Wow! Where were you when I was making pictures? Jeez!” he added.
Always a charmer, that Kirk.
“I have something to confess. I love women and I really love beautiful women, and now I’m gonna give you five of them – the nominees for Best Supporting Actress,” the actor added, getting down to the business he was there to do.
As the view was divided to include the nominees, the camera cut back to Kirk, who instantly jumped at the chance at prolonging his stay in the spotlight – not that anyone was complaining, of course.
“Hello... now is the moment, the moment that we are all waiting for…” he said. “Hugh Jackman is laughing. I don’t know why everybody in Australia thinks I’m funny. Colin Firth is not laughing. He’s British.”
“Now we come to the most important part. This is the moment, if I can get it. You know you’re still laughing. Colin Firth is laughing. You know I will never forget this moment... now we have a winner,” he added.
Eventually, he called out Melissa Leo’s name as the winner for Best Supporting Actress – and, later on, she dropped an F-bomb.
For Kirk Douglas’ moment at the Oscars 2011, see the Gawker video here.