RULE CHANGES
· Anti-Communist clause dropped.
· Cinematography again divided into separate Color and Black & White Awards; Musical Scoring again divided into musical and non-musical films.

SINS OF OMISSION
Picture: Vertigo, Touch of Evil, Some Came Running, The Last Hurrah
Director: Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo
Actor: James Stewart - Vertigo
Actress: Kim Novak - Vertigo
Supporting Actor: Maurice Chevalier - Gigi
Supporting Actress: Hermione Gingold - Gigi
Song: "Hard-Headed Woman," "I Remember It Well," "Teacher's Pet," "Thank Heaven for Little Girls"
Foreign Language Film: Ansiktet (The Magician) - Sweden

UNMENTIONABLES
· The year's biggest scandal was the Elizabeth Taylor - Eddie Fisher - Debbie Reynolds triangle. Taylor went from grieving widow to The Woman You Love to Hate.
· Deborah Kerr's affair with writer Paul Viertel and subsequent divorce from longtime husband Tony Bartley cost her the custody of her two children.
· Clifton Webb claimed to have been so shaken up by Susan Hayward's performance in I Want to Live! as a woman who walks bravely into the gas chamber that he sent producer Walter Wanger the bill for a fifth of Scotch.
· MGM treated Gigi like a Broadway show and opened it in a legitimate theater on the Great White Way. It ran for six months at the Royale Theatre, then moved to a regular movie theater for close to a year.
· Nominee Cara Williams made news due to her impending divorce from John Drew Barrymore: "We'll never reconcile because the three of us would never be happy together -- John, myself and his psychiatrist."
· Awards show producer Jerry Wald's fashion dictate this year? "There will be no cleavage on this year's Oscar^® Awards show... If you need any help, a wardrobe mistress backstage is equipped with enough lace to make a mummy."
· Ingrid Bergman triumphantly returned to Hollywood just before the ceremony. The Awards show was her first public appearance in Tinseltown since she left the US in 1949 to be with Roberto Rossellini.
· Producer Harold Hecht accepted Wendy Hiller's Supporting Actress Award: "It's a great honor to accept this great honor for a great actress."
· Jayne Mansfield and Inger Stevens were two of the women who modeled for the Costume Awards. Mansfield, who was wearing one of Cecil Beaton's creations for Gigi, stood by him at the podium as he accepted his Award.
· Foreign Language Film winner Jacques Tati criticized the Academy for not fully appreciating America's own film comedians in their heyday. In his acceptance speech, he stated "If Hollywood had not done so many funny pictures, I would not be here tonight." Referring to his winning film Mon oncle he concluded, "For all those great comedians, I am not the uncle, but the nephew. I respect Hollywood."
· Anthony Franciosa, Robert Wagner and Rock Hudson were supposed to come out and sing a response to the "little girls" who'd sung "We're glad you're not young anymore" to Maurice Chevalier. Producer Wald axed the number at the last minute.
· Best Director Vincente Minnelli accepted his Award by calling it "just about the proudest moment of my life." This sentiment was slightly undercut by the fact that he was simultaneously scratching his eye with his middle finger.
· As Best Actress Susan Hayward returned to the stage to take another bow, her producer Walter Wanger said to a friend, "Thank heavens, now we all can relax. Susie got what she's been chasing for twenty years."
· To close the show, Mitzi Gaynor strolled out and burst into "There's No Business Like Show Business." As she charged into the second chorus, a part of the stage behind her rose from below with all the winners and presenters standing side by side and singing along. After two more choruses, Wald signaled to Jerry Lewis. There were 20 minutes of airtime left! Keep on singing! Lewis yelled, "Another twenty times!" As the orchestra kept playing, a few people decided that they might as well start dancing. The two lines dissolved into dancing couples. Dean Martin waltzed by the podium and grabbed himself a statuette. Watching the spectacle on TV at home, Spencer Tracy said, "My God, have we fallen to this?" After extended ad-libs from Lewis, some of the dancing celebrities thought it best to disappear from the stage and many members of the audience were well on their way out of the theater. As Lewis picked up a trumpet and began hitting flat notes, NBC turned its cameras off and filled out the rest of the time slot with a short film about pistols.