The 10 Worst Oscars Hosts of All Time
By April Jones
Liza Minnelli, Dudley Moore, Richard Pryor, Walter Matthau
Listen to that little voice in the back of your head for a moment. Is it singing that old Sesame Street song that goes “one of these things is not like the other…”? Not surprising after seeing Richard Pryor’s name among those of his co-hosts for the 55th Academy Awards in 1983.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Oscars enlisted several celebrities to co-host the event on numerous occasions. Richard Pryor and Walter Matthau were no strangers to the Oscar hosting arena. Richard Pryor had co-hosted with Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda, and Ellen Burstyn just a few years before, and Walter Matthau had been a co-host with Goldie Hawn, Gene Kelly, Robert Shaw, and George Segal a year before that. Liza Minnelli and her Arthur co-star were hosting for the first time.
Separately, Minelli, Moore, Pryor, and Matthau are talented entertainers. Between the four of them, they made an odd team, especially for something like hosting the Oscars. Minnelli had enough star power to host the event on her own which would have made her the first woman to do so. (That honor eventually went to Whoopi Goldberg.) She did an outstanding job from the moment the ceremonies opened. Moore, on the other hand, looked nervous and unsure while Matthau and Pryor seemed bored. And if the hosts aren’t having fun, there’s a good chance that the viewers aren’t either.