Uptown's Oscar Ties

As you settle in to watch the Oscars this Sunday, ponder these fun "Uptown Oscar Facts" sent in to us by a reader and amaze your friends:

Uptown Business Owner with Oscar Ties:

Mike Todd, who owned “Michael Todd’s Theater Café” (another business once inside the building where Rainbo Village Condos & Townhomes is now) went on to become a Director, whose film “Around The World in Eighty Days” won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Uptown Theater Costume Designer with Oscar Ties:

Vincente Minnelli (Liza’s father), who was an “assistant stage manager and costume designer, Balaban and Katz theatre chain, Chicago” (quote link below) went on to win the Oscar for Best Director, for “Gigi.”

This Year’s Oscars – Why We Care:

Will “Batman, The Dark Night” win one or more of the eight Oscars for which they are nominated this year? If so, our Uptown neighbor David Dastmalchian, who played one of Joker’s henchmen, will be an Uptown Oscar tie. He was the henchman who Harvey Dent questioned in the ambulance scene.

Uptown Landmarks in Oscar-Winning Films:

Rainbo Gardens - “Love Me or Leave Me,” starring Doris Day and James Cagney, was a movie about jazz age performer Ruth Etting’s life, featuring scenes in a Hollywood recreation of Uptown’s Rainbo Gardens Ballroom. (where Rainbo Village Condos & Townhomes are now being built)

Green Mill Cocktail Lounge – “The Joker Is Wild,” starring Frank Sinatra, Eddie Albert, Mitzi Gaynor and Sophie Tucker is about the life of crooner Joe E. Lewis. His career started at the Green Mill, in the days that Al Capone’s right hand man, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn was part owner. Scenes at the beginning of the movie take place in a Hollywood recreation of Uptown streets and the inside of the Green Mill.

Actors at Uptown’s Essanay Studios who also received Oscars:

Charlie Chaplin

Wallace Beery

Gloria Swanson (Nominated)