The Oscar love curse or Oscar curse is a superstition that the woman who wins the Academy Award for Best Actress will have her boyfriend, fiancé, or husband cheat on her or divorce her soon after.[1][2] It has also been applied to the Best Supporting Actress and to the Best Actor winner.[3] A 2015 study found that divorce rates of female Oscar winners and nominees did not increase, but that divorce rates of male Oscar winners and nominees did.[4]

Another version of an "Oscar curse" is that if an individual wins either a Best Actor/Actress or Best Supporting Actor/Actress award, their career will collapse shortly thereafter.[5][6][7] Sources indicate that the originator of the superstition was Luise Rainer, who after winning two Oscars for best actress in the 1930s had fewer roles in film afterwards which she apparently blamed on receiving the awards.[8] The 2015 study found the opposite to be true: "male and female Oscar winners and Oscar nominees appear in more films following their Oscar experiences than do other actors".[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ Ranker, Donn Saylor. "The best actress curse: All the women who experienced calamities after winning an Oscar". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  2. ^ "Is There Really An Oscar Love Curse?". www.msn.com. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  3. ^ "Oscar love curse: Male actors' divorce rates up after nomination, win | Cornell Chronicle". news.cornell.edu. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  4. ^ a b Jensen, Michael; Kim, Heeyon (February 2015). "The Real Oscar Curse: The Negative Consequences of Positive Status Shifts". Organization Science. 26 (1): 1–21. doi:10.1287/orsc.2014.0951. hdl:1813/72218. ISSN 1047-7039. S2CID 25862222.
  5. ^ Motulsky, Harvey (2014). Intuitive Biostatistics: A Nonmathematical Guide to Statistical Thinking. Oxford University Press. p. 497. ISBN 978-0-19-994664-8.
  6. ^ Malone, Aubrey (October 6, 2020). And the Loser is: A History of Oscar Oversights [2nd Edition]. Vernon Press. ISBN 978-1-62273-969-1.
  7. ^ Ruiz, Michelle (February 23, 2016). "Is the "Oscar Curse" Real?". Vogue. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  8. ^ PTI (February 22, 2015). "The 'Oscar curse' is just a myth, finds study". mint. Retrieved June 21, 2021.
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