UM grad Simmons not only Montana-related Oscar winner

It’s exciting when someone with Montana connections wins an Academy Award.

That happened last night when J.K. Simmons won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for portraying a sadistic music professor in “Whiplash.”

Simmons, a Detroit native, is a 1978 graduate of the University of Montana in Missoula, which gave him an achievement award in 2002. Simmons was fabulous as the obnoxious newspaper editor, J. Jonah Jameson, in the original Spiderman films.

According to his IMDB biography, Simmons originally wanted to become a composer before shifting his focus to musicals and acting. His major at UM was music, but he did summer work as an actor at the Bigfork Summer Playhouse, and he eventually moved to New York City, where his acting career took off.

After “Whiplash,” Simmons has been working on another Terminator film with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He remained modest in an interview with the New York Post, describing a meeting of actors in the film.

As Simmons told the Post: “We all sat down…and all I’m thinking is, ‘We have an Austrian…guys from Australia, a British actress, and me — ‘putzalovich from the Midwest.’ ”

Tribune correspondent Patrick Douglas interviewed Simmons in 2011.

“I’m one of those guys who doesn’t really pay attention to show biz, personally,” Simmons told Douglas in an interview from his home in Los Angeles. “I show up, I do my job and I go home and play with my kids.” He also reported returning to Montana virtually every summer.

Montanans certainly were pulling for Simmons Sunday night.

It’s interesting how Oscars often go to despicable characters, such as Simmons in “Whiplash,” or to Austrian-born Christoph Waltz, who won Best Supporting Actor in “Inglourious Basterds” as a horrible Nazi officer, Col. Hans Landa.

On “Real Time with Bill Maher” recently, writer Fran Lebowitz noted actors tend to get awards when they try to look ugly, such as Nicole Kidman, who wore a prosthetic nose in “The Hours” and won Best Actress in 2002, or Charlize Theron, who played a Florida murderess in “Monster” and won Best Actress in 2004. Anne Hathaway lost weight and had little hair in her Best Supporting Actress winning performance in 2012 for “Les Miserables.”

Back to Montana connections. As Tribune staffer Brian Wipf so deftly pointed out in weekend stories about Montana actors and the film industry in the state, homegrown actors have won major Oscars, including a pair of Best Actor Oscars for Gary Cooper, who grew up north of Helena, for “High Noon” and “Sergeant York.” He and actress Myrna Loy, who was born in Radersburg, both won honorary Oscars from the academy as well. Both were stars in the 1930s through 1950s.

An outstanding Hollywood producer for many years for director Steven Spielberg, Great Falls native Gerald Molen won an Oscar along with Spielberg and Branko Lustig, the other co-producer, when “Schindler’s List” won Best Picture in 1993.

A few Hollywood stars gained fame or won awards for performances in films shot in Montana.

The original James Bond, Scottish actor Sean Connery, finally won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar by portraying an Irish-American cop in the great 1987 gangster film, “The Untouchables.” A portion of the film was shot in the Hardy area south of Cascade.

And Jeff Bridges gained a nomination, but didn’t win, for Best Supporting Actor in the 1974 film shot in Great Falls, “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot,” starring Clint Eastwood.

As best I can recall, about the only movie that ever won Best Picture from the academy that was at least partly filmed in Montana is “Forrest Gump,” a 1994 film starring Tom Hanks that showed Montana briefly in scenes shot in or near Glacier National Park. One scene showed the lead character jogging alongside fields of grain near Cut Bank.

One of the best films ever shot in Montana, the 1992 flick “A River Runs Through It,” won an Oscar for Best Cinematography in 1993. The beauty of Montana probably helped cinematographer Philippe Rousselot win that prize.

There’s no doubt that Montana is a gorgeous state, and that people from the state or with Montana connections have put on winning performances.

Here’s to the great work of the past, and to more awards in the future.

Richard Ecke writes a weekly column on city life. Reach him at recke@greatfallstribune.com, call him at 406-791-1465, or follow him @GFTrib_REcke on Twitter.