The Oscar thing has deteriorated into a sickening mess

This summer I saw My Fair Lady (1964) on the big screen for the first time which was an absolute joy. Rewatching the film, however, I still found it hard to believe that Audrey Hepburn wasn't even nominated for an Oscar for her delightful portrayal of Eliza Doolittle. The snub is one of the biggest nomination snubs of all time and I can imagine how devastated Audrey must have been.

Someone who was outraged by the Academy's failure to nominate Audrey was Deborah Kerr. Deborah was a friend of Audrey's and, according to Audrey biographer Barry Paris, one of the very few friends Audrey had in the film industry. Both women lived in Switzerland, not very far from each other. About her friendship with Audrey, Deborah said in later years: "To the world it may not have seemed that constant or deep an association, but we became very close even though we didn't see each other much. I couldn't say, 'She was my best friend in my whole life'. Yet in a way, perhaps she was." 

When Deborah learned about Audrey not being nominated for My Fair Lady, she wrote Audrey the following letter expressing her shock and anger at the injustice of the Oscar snub. Calling the Oscars a "sham", "hypocritical" and a "sickening mess", I'm sure Deborah conveyed the feelings of many of Audrey's colleagues and friends. In her letter Deborah also mentions Patricia Neal who had just suffered three strokes while pregnant; Audrey would replace Patricia as one of the presenters at the Oscar ceremony to be held a month later (read more about that here). 

Source: Christie's

Transcript:

Friday March 5th [1965]

My darling Aud-

Our life was such a hectic and horrible rush before leaving Klosters a week ago, that I did not have time to write and tell you how positively stunned amazed and shocked and disgusted and 'you name it', we* both were at your not being nominated. If I started to go into all that I feel - all the resentment and boiling anger I entertain for the whole sham - hypocritical - sickening mess the Oscar thing has deteriorated into in these last years, I would take pages, and bore the hell out of you as well!! It is enough to say darling that we feel for you so very much, because however philosophical one is, however one says one doesn't really care, ONE DOES!! And it hurts. But then one starts to think of that tragic Pat Neal, and all her children + her poor husband [Roald Dahl], and one knows that the Oscar is an eye-drop in this world of pain and madness.

Darling one - we send very very much love, and Pedro Amarillo Sucio is no longer Amarillo but still Sucio!

Fondly + affectionately

Deborah

* "We" undoubtedly refers to writer Peter Viertel whom Deborah married in July 1960 and with whom she lived in Klosters, Switzerland.

Above: Audrey and Deborah with Deborah's husband Peter Viertel, ca. 1965. Below: Audrey and Deborah were jointly voted "Best Actress of the Broadway Season 1953-1954" in a poll of the New York Drama Critics, i.e. Audrey for her role in Ondine and Deborah for Tea and Sympathy; here Deborah visits Audrey backstage during the run of Ondine.