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Senior moment
The task of presenting the evening's first big award—Best Supporting Actress—fell to 94-year-old Kirk Douglas, who stretched the duty into a riveting six minutes of screen time (including nearly two minutes for performance clips). With his speech still severely impaired by a stroke he suffered nearly 15 years ago, Douglas' appearance was alternately uncomfortable, bold, strange, hammy, hilarious and endearing.
He poked fun at his status as a three time Oscar "loser," called out to Hugh Jackman and Colin Firth in the audience, directed some jokes at Franco and Hathaway, used his cane for a bit of prop comedy, and even paused twice between opening the envelope and announcing the winner—dragging out the reveal of one of the evening's most suspenseful categories as if he was Ryan Seacrest reading the results on "American Idol."
A kooky way to deliver the first acting award, yes. But there's no question Douglas was loving every minute of it.
