Match the Best Supporting Actor - 1980s Quiz

Answer: Timothy Hutton

With his first Academy Award nomination, Timothy Hutton won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as troubled teenager Conrad Jarrett in "Ordinary People". It was Hutton's credited feature film debut; he had an uncredited appearance in his father Jim Hutton's 1965 film "Never Too Late".

At the time, 20-year-old Hutton was the youngest performer to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and he received his Oscar from Mary Tyler Moore, who played his distant mother in the film. In the film, Conrad was the younger, neglected son of a couple (Donald Sutherland and Moore) who were dealing with the accidental death of their older, accomplished son. Conrad's guilt over the sailing accident that caused his brother's death led to a suicide attempt which further drove a wedge between him and his cold mother.

The other nominees in the category were Judd Hirsch ("Ordinary People"), Michael O'Keefe ("The Great Santini"), Joe Pesci ("Raging Bull"), and Jason Robards ("Melvin and Howard").

Answer: John Gielgud

John Gielgud won his only Oscar for his role as the sardonic butler Hobson in "Arthur". He had previously been nominated in the same category for "Becket" in 1965. Dudley Moore portrayed the titular "Arthur", a perpetually drunk and coddled rich man whose closest relationship was with his haughty butler Hobson (Gielgud) until he met saucy waitress Linda (Liza Minelli).

At first dismissing the lower class Linda, Hobson turned matchmaker once he realized that Arthur was truly in love. The other contenders for the Best Supporting Actor award were James Coco ("Only When I Laugh"), Ian Holm ("Chariots of Fire"), Jack Nicholson ("Reds"), and Howard E. Rollins Jr. ("Ragtime").

Answer: Louis Gossett Jr.

At the fifty-fifth Academy Awards ceremony, Louis Gossett, Jr. won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as intimidating Gunnery Sgt. Emil Foley in "An Officer and a Gentleman". It was his first Academy Award nomination, and he became the first African-American to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. R. Lee Ermey, who had been an actual Marine drill instructor and later portrayed one in "Full Metal Jacket", was reportedly considered for the role, but the director cast Gossett instead and had Ermey serve as a technical adviser.

In "An Officer and a Gentleman", Richard Gere portrayed Zack Mayo, a cocky recruit at the Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School. Foley tried to break Mayo and get him to quit but they eventually developed mutual respect for each other.

The other nominees in the category were Charles Durning ("The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas"), John Lithgow ("The World According to Garp"), James Mason ("The Verdict"), and Robert Preston ("Victor/Victoria").

Answer: Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson won his second Oscar and the first in the Best Supporting Actor category for his role as smarmy retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove in "Terms of Endearment". He had previously won in the Best Actor category for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in 1976.

He also had nominations for Best Actor for "Five Easy Pieces" in 1971, "The Last Detail" in 1974, and "Chinatown" in 1975, and for Best Supporting Actor for "Easy Rider" in 1970, and "Reds" in 1982. In "Terms of Endearment", Breedlove was the womanizing neighbor of strait-laced and lonely Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) with whom he developed a relationship.

The role of Breedlove was not in the Larry McMurtry novel, but was written by the screenwriter/director/producer James L. Brooks for Burt Reynolds, which he turned down due to another commitment.

The other Best Supporting Actor contenders were Charles Durning ("To Be or Not To Be"), John Lithgow ("Terms of Endearment"), Sam Shepard ("The Right Stuff"), and Rip Torn ("Cross Creek").

Answer: Haing S. Ngor

With his film debut, Dr. Haing S. Ngor won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as photographer Dith Pran in "The Killing Fields". He was the first Asian to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Based on the true experiences of American journalist Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) and Cambodian journalist/translator Pran, "The Killing Fields" took place during and after the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge. Schanberg left the country but Pran decided to stay, having to disguise himself as a peasant to stay alive before he too had to escape. Ngor's own experiences in Cambodia mirrored that of Pran; a medical doctor by training, he also had to hide his profession, and when he was murdered outside his home in Los Angeles in 1996, the local Cambodian community believed it was retribution by Pol Pot's regime. Three members of an Asian street gang were later convicted for the murder as part of a robbery.

The other nominees in the category were Adolph Caesar ("A Soldier's Story"), John Malkovich ("Places in the Heart"), Noriyuki "Pat" Morita ("The Karate Kid"), and Ralph Richardson ("Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes").

Answer: Don Ameche

With his sole Academy Award nomination, Don Ameche won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as feisty senior citizen Arthur Selwyn in "Cocoon". In the fantasy film, a group of peaceful aliens rented a house and used the pool to provide energy for members of their species who were in a cocooned state.

Some of the residents of a retirement home next door swam in the pool and regained their youthful energy, which led to disastrous consequences for the cocoons and life-changing decisions for the senior citizens.

The 77-year-old Ameche actually performed about 90 percent of his stunts in the film, including part of a break-dancing scene. The other Best Supporting Actor contenders were Klaus Maria Brandauer ("Out of Africa"), William Hickey ("Prizzi's Honor"), Robert Loggia ("Jagged Edge"), and Eric Roberts ("Runaway Train").

Answer: Michael Caine

Michael Caine picked up his first Oscar for his role as philandering Elliott Daniels in "Hannah and Her Sisters". He had three previous nominations, all in the Best Actor category, for "Alfie" in 1967, "Sleuth" in 1973, and "Educating Rita" in 1984. Caine famously missed out on accepting his award in person because he was filming "Jaws: The Revenge", the universally panned fourth installment in the "Jaws" series.

It was probably for the best; based on audience applause, Willem Dafoe was the clear favorite for the award.

In the Woody Allen film which took place over a two-year period, Daniels was the husband of the titular Hannah (Mia Farrow), and his affair with her sister Lee (Barbara Hershey) was one of the stories in the film. Hannah's ex-husband (Allen) was involved with her other sister Holly (Dianne Wiest), who had given up on acting and catering careers to become a writer.

Unfortunately, she wrote a story about Hannah and Elliott which threatened to reveal the Elliott and Lee's affair.

The other Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominees were Tom Berenger ("Platoon"), Willem Dafoe ("Platoon"), Denholm Elliott ("A Room with a View"), and Dennis Hopper ("Hoosiers").

Answer: Sean Connery

At the sixtieth Academy Awards ceremony, Sean Connery won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as veteran police officer Jimmy Malone in "The Untouchables". It was his only Academy Award nomination. Although based on the true story of Agent Eliot Ness's group of incorruptible law enforcement agents who worked to bring down gangster Al Capone, the film took quite a bit of artistic license. Jimmy Malone wasn't a real person but appeared to be a based on a mixture of agents.

In the film, Ness (Kevin Costner) followed Malone's advice to recruit people who hadn't been bought by Capone (Robert De Niro), including a police trainee (Andy Garcia) and an accountant (Charles Martin Smith).

The other nominees in the category were Albert Brooks ("Broadcast News"), Morgan Freeman ("Street Smart"), Vincent Gardenia ("Moonstruck"), and Denzel Washington ("Cry Freedom").

It was the first nominations for Freeman and Washington, and it was the first year that multiple black actors received Best Supporting Actor nominations.

Answer: Kevin Kline

With his first Academy Award nomination, Kevin Kline picked up the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as dimwitted hired gun Otto West in "A Fish Called Wanda". In the film, a couple of English gangsters George and Ken (Tom Georgeson and Michael Palin) teamed up with an American con-artist Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and alleged former CIA operative Otto to steal diamonds. Wanda planned on taking the diamonds for herself, but after finding that George had hidden the diamonds, she had to con his barrister (John Cleese) into revealing the location. And there really was a fish called Wanda; she belonged to Ken until she met a gruesome end.

The other contenders for the award were Alec Guinness ("Little Dorrit"), Martin Landau ("Tucker: The Man and his Dream"), River Phoenix ("Running on Empty"), and Dean Stockwell ("Married to the Mob").

Answer: Denzel Washington

With his second Academy Award nomination, Denzel Washington won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as rebellious Private Silas Trip in "Glory". He was previously nominated in the same category for "Cry Freedom" in 1988. "Glory" was a very fictionalized account of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, an African-American unit during the American Civil War. Matthew Broderick portrayed Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, who was the actual commander of the unit. Washington, Cary Elwes, and Morgan Freeman all portrayed fictional characters in the regiment.

In the film, Trip was an embittered former slave who incited the other men to fight injustice, but he came to learn that not everything is simply black and white. The other nominees for Best Supporting Actor were Danny Aiello ("Do the Right Thing"), Dan Aykroyd ("Driving Miss Daisy"), Marlon Brando ("A Dry White Season"), and Martin Landau ("Crimes and Misdemeanors").