Alan Arkin (born March 26, 1934) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, musician, and singer. With a film career spanning six decades, Arkin is known for his performances in Popi; Wait Until Dark; The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming; The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter; Catch-22; The In-Laws; Edward Scissorhands; Glengarry Glen Ross; Thirteen Conversations About One Thing; Little Miss Sunshine; and Argo. He has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor twice for his performances in The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Little Miss Sunshine and received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance in Argo. (More from Wikipedia)
Dreamgirls created drama at the Oscars that year to match what was being portrayed on the screen. Despite not being nominated for Best Director or Best Picture (or any nominations for Best Actor or Best Actress either, for that matter), Dreamgirls had the most Academy Award nominations in 2007 with eight – a first at the Academy Awards. In a rare feat for an actor in a debut role, Jennifer Hudson was named Best Supporting Actress, but Eddie Murphy’s loss to Alan Arkin (for his role in the quirky and delightful comedy Little Miss Sunshine) as Best Supporting Actor was regarded as an upset. Three of the songs from Dreamgirls were nominated for Best Song, but they also lost out to the Melissa Etheridge song “I Need to Wake Up” from the Al Gore documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth.
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