By now the entire world knows about the Steve Harvey sized gaffe at the Oscars last night when the wrong winner was announced for Best Picture. Legendary actor Warren Beatty announced La La Land as the winner, but somehow had the wrong card, and the actual winner was Moonlight. It was arguably the biggest gaffe in the history of the show, but not the only gaffe on the evening.
The rough night for the Oscars continued into the “In Memoriam” segment where the Oscars honor those from Hollywood who passed away in the last year. If there’s one place you don’t want to get something wrong, it’s the “In Memoriam” video montage. Ok, maybe that and announcing the winner of Best Picture.
And yet, incredibly, the 2017 Oscars somehow managed to pull off the daily double last night by managing to have a major error in both.
During the “In Memoriam” segment, the Oscars tried to honor costume designer Janet Patterson. Instead, they showed a picture of Australian producer Jan Chapman, who is indeed very much alive.
This came up in the In Memoriam section at #Oscars2017. But isn't this (living) Australian film producer Jan Chapman? pic.twitter.com/YKIMGBUv5E
— David Berthold (@DavidBerthold) February 27, 2017
Chapman spoke about the embarrassing mix-up to Variety:
“I was devastated by the use of my image in place of my great friend and long-time collaborator Janet Patterson. I had urged her agency to check any photograph which might be used and understand that they were told that the Academy had it covered. Janet was a great beauty and four-time Oscar nominee and it is very disappointing that the error was not picked up,” Chapman told Variety by email. “I am alive and well and an active producer.”
Chapman is one of Australia’s best-known producers with credits including “Lantana,” “Holy Smoke,” and “The Last Days of Chez Nous.” She was married to director Philip Noyce in the 1970s.
To confuse matters further, Patterson and Chapman worked together on “The Piano.”
How does that happen? How do you not check, double-check, and triple-check that everything is accurate in the In Memoriam video montage of all things? Confusing people who are on opposite sides of the grave is definitely never a good thing.
You can have your conspiracy theories about the Oscars trying to get some viral publicity after the Best Picture snafu (and that’s entirely within the realm of possibility), but this one is just an honest mistake. At this rate, maybe the Oscars should be congratulated for not showing a picture of Carrie Underwood to honor Carrie Fisher.
