10 Biggest Oscar Goofs Of All Time
6. The Streaker
If you thought streakers were reserved for football games, then David Niven has some news for you.
As the actor began introducing Elizabeth Taylor, who would be in turn announcing the 1974 Best Picture winner, a man named Robert Opel rushed past wearing a finely tailored birthday suit. Niven retained total composure, saying “That was almost bound to happen,” before unleashing the most lethal burn of 1974: “Isn’t it fascinating to think that the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings.”
Taylor herself would continue the Carry On-esque humour upon arrival, admitting that he was a “pretty hard act to follow.”
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the streaking was actually planned, a setup organized by the show’s producers. Oscars business manager Robert Metzler insists that Niven had borrowed a pen from his wife two hours earlier, in order to write down his ‘shortcomings’ line, and had expressed great pride in having conceived the jab.
At any rate, the incident turned Opel into a low-level celebrity, and he even ran for US President several years later, using suggestive slogans like ‘Nothing to Hide’ and ‘Not Just Another Crooked Dick’.