Goldie Hawn has revealed how the Oscars led to her biggest-ever career regret.
The actor has been nominated twice – once for Best Supporting Actress in 1970, following her early role in Cactus Flower, and again in the Best Actress category for Private Benjamin in 1981.
She won the former trophy, beating out Catherine Burns (Last Summer), Dyan Cannon (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice) Sylvia Miles (Midnight Cowboy) and Susannah York (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?).
However, the award was picked up by Racquel Welch on Hawn’s behalf as she didn’t make it to the ceremony – something the actor wishes she could go back and change.
“I never got dressed up – I never got to pick up the award,” she said in a new Variety interview, adding: “I regret it.”
She continued: “It’s something that I look back on now and think, ‘It would have been so great to be able to have done that.’”
Hawn was so convinced she didn’t stand a chance at winning that she didn’t even tune in to watch the ceremony.
“I forgot it was on television that night,” she continued. “Then I woke up to a phone call at like four in the morning, and it was a man’s voice and he said, ‘Hey, congratulations, you got it – you got the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.’”
She said, after hanging up the phone, she “had a good cry”.
Hawn said that she only ever watched the moment she was announced as winner earlier this year, after being prompted to do so by Jimmy Kimmel, who is hosting the 2023 ceremony on Sunday (12 March).
“He said, ‘Did you ever see the part where you’re being announced by Fred Astaire?’ And I said, ‘Fred Astaire?!’ He’s my idol. And I didn’t know he was the one that announced my name. I got emotional when I finally saw it,” she said.
