{"id":361756,"date":"2026-03-24T01:31:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T01:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/361756\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T01:31:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T01:31:07","slug":"bud-cort-snubbed-by-oscars-deserved-more-from-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/361756\/","title":{"rendered":"Bud Cort, Snubbed by Oscars, Deserved More From Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt was a startling omission. An actor barely out of his teens when he burst onto the scene in Hal Ashby\u2019s 1971 cult black comedy Harold and Maude, Bud Cort<\/a> made such an indelible impression that both he and the film he starred in (as Ruth Gordon\u2019s decades-younger acolyte\/lover) were catapulted to iconic status almost overnight. His was the kind of success story Hollywood lives for\u2014yet this year, on the heels of his death in February, the Oscars telecast did not see fit to acknowledge Bud Cort in its In Memoriam section. Despite his place in the hearts of millions who continue to treasure Harold, he didn\u2019t even merit a split-screen cameo.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf Bud were still alive, I can picture him responding to the snub with a casual mention of the telecast\u2019s poor ratings, a twinkle in his eye.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was 1984. A decade and change after the performance that first set his professional life ablaze, Bud wanted to write his memoirs.<\/p>\n

\n\tI was an editor at a small press, and a writer we both knew told him I was the person he should meet. I can still picture him walking into my office, sitting across from me, talking in his soft voice.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe told me he had been rear-ended on the L.A. freeway.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI physically left my body,\u201d\u00a0he said. \u201cI could look down and see my body in the car from where I was hovering from above, and I remember I had to make a conscious decision whether or not to go back to it. I made the decision to go back. I didn\u2019t have to. I\u2019m still not sure I made the right decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough the driver who rammed into him was clearly at fault, and the law in L.A. was on the side of the rammee, the other man sued Bud, painting him as a profligate entitled celebrity. Somehow the driver won \u2014 his lawyer brought up the Conehead characters from\u00a0Saturday Night Live to argue that the damage Bud was left with from the accident was makeup, a disguise, some sort of fancy special effect \u2014 and he was forced to pay an obscene amount of money to the man who had nearly killed him.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis delicate beauty was altered by a receding hairline and a long scar on his forehead he immediately pointed out to me, evidence of that accident on the freeway.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe thought he had the makings of a good memoir, he said. I was surprised to learn he had been born in Rye, New York; he seemed to me a pure California creation. Out West he was an orphan of sorts, he told me, barely in his twenties when he\u2019d basically moved in with Groucho Marx and his wife. He found not only new family and shelter but a bonus: the Marxes entertained continuously, so in the years he lived with them, Bud met practically every celebrity in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the time he was radiantly young, even more innocent than his years. He told me about sitting by the pool when someone came over and started talking to him and he knew he was in love, for the first time madly in love.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was Barbra Streisand. She loved him too, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019d had a minimal impression of Bud before we met. He\u2019d been a pale wide-eyed boy in a few fraught scenes in Robert Altman\u2019s\u00a0M*A*S*H,\u00a0his film debut. I remember his ghostly pallor, his Beatles-mop dark dark hair, his painful bespectacled innocence. From the start he was apparently an actor who felt he should be the star of whatever movie he was in, and he got his wish in his second turn with Altman, the oddity\u00a0Brewster McCloud,\u00a0playing a boy obsessed with birds and convinced he could fly (and also possibly a murderer). I can\u2019t say it really worked.<\/p>\n

\n\tNor did I particularly enjoy\u00a0Harold and Maude,\u00a0the movie that made his fame. Though it pains me to admit it, I can\u2019t watch anything with Ruth Gordon in it, even with Bud at her side. But meeting him altered something. The second time I saw M*A*S*H*, it landed differently as I watched Bud: the complicated nature of his actual being seemed to fight against the tiny role, as if there were a whole other movie his character was in, and the movie I was watching was missing it.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy second viewing of\u00a0Harold and Maude\u00a0was even stranger \u2014 all I could do the entire time I watched was try not to cry. I felt everything roiling inside that moonfaced boy, the one I now knew as a fragile, complicated adult. He wasn\u2019t simulating emotions, pretending, covering; he was raw.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tI hadn\u2019t expected to find him captivating when he walked into my office. And that same year when he returned to New York for an Off-Broadway production of Endgame,\u00a0I discovered something else I hadn\u2019t known: he wasn\u2019t just a unique, odd creature, somehow both angelic and sepulchral, vivid and elusive. I saw the person I knew as vulnerable, unfiltered, heartbreaking, and he was all those things, but he was also a brilliant actor, born to the stage. Watching him make sense of the absurdist piece, bring it to life in multiple dimensions, it occurred to me why actors would want to do Beckett. The challenge was to create something from a different language entirely, thin air and metaphysics, and Bud transformed it; he was touching and scathingly funny. I hadn\u2019t known he could do it; that anyone could.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0***<\/p>\n

\n\tMy first trip out to L.A., in 1988, I called the number Bud had given me.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI thought of you yesterday,\u201d he said when he heard my voice. \u201cI was going to invite you to the opening of\u00a0Big Top Pee-Wee.\u201d I wondered how (if) he could have known I was in town before I\u2019d called. \u201cUsually openings aren\u2019t that much fun, but this was a good one.\u201d He asked if I wanted to come with him to a party that evening.<\/p>\n

\n\tI hadn\u2019t packed any clothes remotely glamorous enough to wear, and I was scared to face what surely awaited me, but saying no felt like a mistake I couldn\u2019t afford to make.<\/p>\n

\n\tBud drove up in his car, which was more butch than I expected, maybe a Jeep. He seemed assured, a complete adult behind the wheel. We headed to Woody Harrelson\u2019s bungalow in Malibu.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tA few years later our party\u2019s host would appear in an odd little feature Bud directed, co-wrote and starred in, Ted & Venus, about which perhaps the less said the better. That night, though, Bud decided he\u2019d schmoozed the requisite amount after about an hour and came to me with a new plan: we were going out to dinner. \u00a0(\u201cThere\u2019s never any food at these.\u201d) A few of his friends would join us: the actor Teri Garr, with her dentist boyfriend (who would ultimately pay the check); comedian Jon Lovitz and his twin sister, unexpectedly blond.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe stood in line outside a small building, a buzzy Malibu restaurant, enduring the inevitable wait. \u201cDo they know we\u2019re here?\u201d said Teri Garr, \u201cDo they know who we are? Who\u00a0are\u00a0we?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt last we were brought inside and seated at a round table, Bud on my right. Jon Lovitz, to my left, did not look at me during the meal, but when I inevitably spilled my water, he reached across the table and wiped up the mess without a word.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRob Lowe was at the table next to us, with a woman and two guys. Fairly soon after we were seated, I noticed he was no longer at his table but standing drinking at the tiny bar across the room. His gaze was fixed longingly on Bud.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOh, there\u2019s Rob Lowe,\u201d Bud said at some point, mentioning how pretty he was. \u201cHe has the tiniest scar near his mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s only been cruising you nonstop since we got here,\u201d I said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBud demurred, then mentioned how underrated the actor was: \u201cHe was very good in that movie\u2014\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRob Lowe was abruptly standing beside Bud\u2019s chair, vibrating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u200b\u201cI\u2019ve loved you ever since I was 5 years old,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt felt as if young Rob would have done anything Bud asked of him, if there were even a chance that some of Bud\u2019s talent might rub off on him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u200bBud stood and the two began talking about art and craft.<\/p>\n

\n\tTeri Garr turned to me, raising her eyebrows. \u201cIsn\u2019t this\u00a0thrilling?!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\t\u200bA few months later I was back in New York when I heard from Bud again. Barely an hour before a matinee of\u00a0Waiting for Godot\u00a0at Lincoln Center, he called and asked if I could join him. He\u2019d flown out to see a few of his well-heeled friends in the play\u2019s performance\u2014more Beckett!<\/p>\n

\n\tOn stage Steve Martin treated the material disdainfully, as if he were above it, perhaps unequipped to make it real. After the show we hid until the actor had gone; Bud didn\u2019t want to lie to his friend about his performance. Going downstairs to\u00a0the small dressing room the cast all shared, we found Robin Williams, F. Murray Abraham and Bill Irwin in various stages of post-show unwind.<\/p>\n

\n\tBill Irwin introduced Bud to F. Murray Abraham. \u201cI don\u2019t know you. Should I?\u201d Abraham said, loudly and coldly. This was payback; Irwin hadn\u2019t recognized an illustrious friend the older actor had introduced him to. Irwin, whose house seats we\u2019d been sitting in, rushed to soften the blow, and Bud reacted more graciously\u00a0than I would have expected. He moved to introduce me to Abraham, who turned away from me as he limply allowed my handshake. I repeated my name crisply, a small gesture of defiance.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile Robin Williams, who during the show had interspersed the text with his characteristic manic improv, stood dressing quietly. None of the others actors in the dressing room spoke to him. He looked at me as I stood hovering in the doorway. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHello,\u201d he said, almost tenderly.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHi!\u201d I said, my voice tiny as a child\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u200bI can\u2019t remember how long ago it was that I last called Bud, which visit to L.A. He never called me back. I think I tried calling again a few years later, his L.A. number and then the number I had for him in Rye, but I may be making that up. I don\u2019t think he ever called me again to say he was in New York.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaybe we did keep trying a few more times, missing each other. Maybe I disappointed him, or the connection just went silent.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe was a mesmerizing storyteller, with an endless supply of stories, but he seemed very, very troubled. I don\u2019t want to say\u00a0neurotic, but he seemed plagued.<\/p>\n

\n\tI was surprised to learn he\u2019d was in Connecticut when he died, as if somehow if I\u2019d known he was on the East Coast, it would have made a difference.\u00a0Nursing home;\u00a0long illness\u2026\u00a0Would he have answered if I\u2019d reached out? Would I have gotten to hear his voice again, seen his shimmering pale face?<\/p>\n

\n\tHe never did write those memoirs. I\u2019d still like to read them.<\/p>\n

\n\tHelen Eisenbach is a journalist and author. Her essays, reviews, and interviews have appeared in the Huffington Post, New York magazine and the New York Times, among other publications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a startling omission. An actor barely out of his teens when he burst onto the scene…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[140155,321,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-361756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-bud-cort","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}