62nd Academy Awards

The 62nd Academy Awards were presented March 26, 1990 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. The venue, half the size of the one used the previous year, prompted Gil Cates (the producer of the telecast) and Karl Malden (the president of the Academy) to put a memo to "our friends in the industry" in the March 13th edition of the Daily Variety saying "Please understand: the tickets are gone" and pointing out that "next year we'll be back in comparatively spacious quarters, and then we'll try to find room for every Academy member who wants to attend, and maybe even some of the aunts, archbishops, and visitors from Abu Dhabi who are your houseguests that weekend."

The event, billed as Around the World in 3½ Hours - The 62d Academy Awards Presentation, featured live segments from five other cities around the globe:

• Buenos Aires, Argentina
• London, United Kingdom
• Moscow, Soviet Union (featuring Jack Lemmon and Natalya Negoda announcing the Oscar nominees for best foreign film)
• Sydney, Australia
• Tokyo, Japan

This was the first telecast hosted by Billy Crystal; he would host the show eight more times over the next twenty-two years. Crystal opened the ceremony with a song about the nominees for best picture, something he would do for every ceremony he hosted.

Driving Miss Daisy won four awards including Best Picture; the 80-year-old Jessica Tandy became the oldest woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. An Honorary Academy Award went to Akira Kurosawa for "accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched and entertained audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world." Howard W. Koch received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Also notable about this is that it is only the 3rd film to win Best Picture without a Best Director nomination, as well as the first one to do this since the 30s.