Why Gene Hackman, but not Michelle Trachtenberg, made cut for Oscars In Memoriam
As in past years, the In Memoriam segment of Sunday’s Oscar telecast quickly became controversial because of the stars who were left out of the montage, notably ‘Gossip Girl’ star…
Days before Sunday’s Academy Awards, one segment of Hollywood’s big show was potentially thrown into chaos by the news of two unexpected and shocking celebrity deaths: Gene Hackman and Michelle Trachtenberg.
The producers of the annual In Memoriam segment had to scramble at the 11th hour to figure out if and how to make adjustments to what’s meant to be a highly moving portion of the annual telecast — a minutes-long tribute, via music and montage, to beloved stars and film industry stalwarts who have died over the past year. But as in past years, Sunday’s In Memoriam quickly became controversial because of the stars who were left out of the segment — notably Trachtenberg.
While 95-year-old Hackman, a two-time Oscar winner, received a hastily arranged, stand-alone tribute by his “Unforgiven” co-star Morgan Freeman Sunday night, 39-year-old Trachtenberg was a non-entity. Her omission angered fans who took to social media to call the snub “so disrespectful,” “shameful” and “a huge oversight,” according to The Blast.
LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 23: Michelle Trachtenberg attends the Third Annual “InStyle Awards” presented by InStyle at The Getty Center on October 23, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for InStyle)But according to Academy Awards experts talking to The Hollywood Reporter, the inclusion of Hackman, and the omission of Trachtenberg, wasn’t that surprising. Indeed, the Hollywood Reporter said late last week that Trachtenberg was “a question mark for the tribute” while Hackman would “certainly be included.”
“It’s an Oscar ritual that always has a rustle of drama beneath the surface,” Michael Schulman, an Academy Awards expert and author of the 2023 book “Oscar Wars,” told The Hollywood Reporter.
“No matter what happens, there will be 10 headlines about who was snubbed posthumously, and there’s nothing that can be done about it,” Schulman added, with The Hollywood Reporter noting that Anne Heche’s friends “could tell you something about it” after she wasn’t included in the In Memoriam in 2023.
Morgan Freeman speaks about Gene Hackman with an image of Gene Hackman on the screen during the Oscars on Sunday, March 2, 2025, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)Indeed, preparing the In Memoriam segment has become a highly sensitive and often politicized process, according to a 2013 New York Times expose. Winnowing down the names and the number of people to be honored takes months, with the montage that’s played during the telecast undergoing multiple revisions in the weeks and even days leading up to the ceremony, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Suddenly reworking the presentation at the last minute is probably something that would only would be done for an industry legend like Hackman, who starred in some of the most acclaimed and consequential American films of the past 50 years, including “The French Connection” and “The Conversation.”
Meanwhile, Trachtenberg certainly had her fans and even received tributes in The New York Times and other outlets for being “a touchstone of millennial youth culture who grew up on screen.” She starred in “Ice Princess” and other films, but, ultimately, was mostly known for her work in TV shows like “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “Gossip Girl.”
Film prominence — as opposed to TV or stage roles — usually gives an actor the edge for inclusion in the In Memoriam segment, The Hollywood Reporter said. Some fans also were outraged when Suzanne Somers was not included among the honorees in the 2024 telecast, but Schulman pointed out that “she was known for being a sitcom star and fitness guru and her filmography was pretty scattered.”
FILE – Shannen Doherty attends the G-Star Fall 2010 collection, in New York, on Feb. 16, 2010. Doherty, the “Beverly Hills, 90210” star, has died, Saturday, July 13, 2024. She was 53. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, file)Prominence in television could also explain why Shannen Doherty, star of “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Charmed,” also was omitted from Sunday night’s tribute, another Hollywood Reporter story said. However, the publication also pointed out that Doherty, who died in July 2024 at age 53, still had culturally significant movie roles including “Heathers” and “Mall Rats.”
Meanwhile, as Variety reported, the segment also left out actors including Tony Todd, Chance Perdomo, Alain Delon, “Annie Hall” star Tony Roberts, Linda Lavin, James Darren, Mitzi Gaynor, Martin Mull and “Romeo and Juliet” star Olivia Hussey were also omitted, along with documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock.
Sunday night’s In Memoriam segment, accompanied by the “Lacrimosa” portion of Mozart’s “Requiem in D Minor,” featured tributes to actors who were past Oscar winners or nominees, or who were otherwise considered respected, longtime film stars, including Maggie Smith, Gena Rowlands, Donald Sutherland, James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett Jr., Kris Kristofferson, Teri Garr, Shelley Duvall, Joan Plowright and Dabney Coleman.
The segment also honored such behind-the-camera luminaries as directors David Lynch and Norman Jewison, writer-director Robert Towne and producers Roger Corman and Albert S. Ruddy. But the montage also featured some industry professionals, including a publicist or two, whose names would not be known to telecast viewers.
The non-actor names are included because the In Memoriam segment is devised by a special executive committee, made up of members who represent all 19 branches of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The branches represent writers, editors, cinematographers, sound technicians, visual effects artists and others who work in the below-the-line categories. The committee members, of course, advocate on behalf of their late colleagues, leading to some little known but well-regarded crafts professionals being honored and some popular actors being left out.
“It’s a really thorough selection process, and (the committee) takes it as a big responsibility,” Katy Mullen, co-executive producer of Sunday’s show, told The Hollywood Reporter. Picking the right mix of names names is one challenge, but the committee also must find the right balance between paying homage to as many beloved colleagues as possible without including so many names that it overloads the show.
A source close to the Academy told The Hollywood Reporter that previous Oscar winners and honorees of Governors Awards always have the best chance to make the cut, as do recipients of scientific and technical awards.
When it comes to finalizing the montage, it is coordinated to the music, “down to the second,” Mullan and Raj Kapoor, the show’s other executive producer, told The Hollywood Reporter. Nonetheless, space is still allotted in the montage in case a major star dies just before the show.
On Wednesday morning, news broke that Trachtenberg was found dead in her New York City apartment of “undetermined” causes, though multiple news reports said she had recently undergone a liver transplant.
The next day, authorities in New Mexico announced that the bodies of Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa and one of their dogs had been discovered in their Santa Fe home the day before. The mysterious nature of their deaths has been deemed “suspicious enough in nature” for the Santa Fe County sheriff’s department to conduct “a thorough search and investigation.”
As it happens, the montage isn’t locked in until the last dress rehearsal on the morning of the show — a point that unfortunately became useful in making the necessary last-minute changes to honor Hackman, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
It also became immediately clear to Schulman that Hackman would be featured in the “coveted last spot” in the montage, which Oscars fans know is always reserved for “a true VIP,” the publication also said. Unfortunately, placing Hackman there meant that some other prominent figure got bumped back.
“A beloved two-time-Oscar-winning star is found dead days before the ceremony? That’s a final montage slot if I ever saw one,” Schulman told The Hollywood Reporter in an email on Thursday.
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