The Best Supporting Actress winner this year was unique. 4' 9" Linda Hunt won the award for her role as Billy Kwan - a male Chinese-Australian photographer - in Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously, making her the first actor to win an Oscar for playing a character of the opposite sex.
Gordon Willis, a respected cinematographer most famous for his un-nominated work on The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II, and Woody Allen's Manhattan, received his first Best Cinematography nomination for Zelig.
Joe I. Tompkins becomes the first African-American to be nominated in Best Costume Design.
This ceremony ended with Sammy Davis Jr. and Liza Minnelli leading the crowd in "There's No Business Like Show Business" in tribute to Ethel Merman, who had died a month and a half before this Oscar ceremony. The performance occurred over the closing credits to the broadcast.
