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Oscar Podium Meltdowns

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'I'm Practically Unprepared'

As longtime host Johnny Carson once observed, the Academy Awards are "two hours of sparkling entertainment spread over four hours." Oscar organizers have fought for years to curb the length of the show, but it's hard to stop the stars once they've got a microphone and start thanking their manager, publicist and everyone else on their checklist.

Cuba Gooding Jr. undoubtedly set the record for saying "I love you" a total of 14 times, thanking everyone from Tom Cruise to God, when he won best supporting actor for "Jerry Maguire."

Even after the orchestra interrupted him, he continued, "Everyone who was involved in this, I love you! I love you! I love you!"

Today's marathon shows make it impossible to even consider the crisis of 1958, just six years after the Oscars became a TV event, when the show ran 20 minutes short, and host Jerry Lewis had to ad lib his way through the rest of the evening, getting the winners to dance together and sing "There's No Business Like Show Business."

There was even a time back in the late 1920s when the Oscar shows were held in private. "There is something embarrassing about all these wealthy people congratulating each other," Cary Grant said of the ceremony, as if he'd had a crystal ball.

Perhaps the first actress to take a serious public relations beating for monopolizing the microphone was Greer Garson. Some claim the seven-time nominee spent 90 rambling minutes on stage after winning best actress in 1942 for "Mrs. Miniver."

Cooler heads recall Garson's speech lasting about seven minutes. Predictably, she began it by saying, "I'm practically unprepared," and she went on to mention just about every person she'd ever met, including "the doctor who brought me into the world."

Still, contemporary stars regularly regret their podium performances, sometimes almost immediately after they've become Oscar winners.

"It was like I was out of my body, but the next morning when I saw it on tape, I thought, 'Oh my God! I was out of control,'" Halle Berry told Entertainment Weekly shortly after the 2002 ceremony.

"I felt like a babbling idiot."

The following year, Berry was a presenter, and when she handed the best actor award to Adrien Brody, he surprised everyone — including Berry — with a big kiss that made it seem as if he and Berry were lovers, and that became the most talked about incident of the evening.

Similarly, Angelina Jolie was forced to explain the relationship with her brother James Haven after she won best supporting actress for "Girl, Interrupted" in 2000. The full-lipped actress was seated next to her sibling and planted a big kiss on his lips before emerging onstage. "I'm in shock," she told the crowd. "And I'm so in love with my brother right now, he just held me and said he loved me."

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