43rd Academy Awards

The 43rd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was held on April 15, 1971, and took place at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to honor the best films of 1970. The Awards, without a host for the third consecutive year, were broadcast by NBC for the first time in 11 years. George C. Scott, winner of Best Actor for Patton, became the first actor to decline an Oscar, having previously protested his nomination for Best Supporting Actor for The Hustler (1961) and quoted as saying that the Academy Awards were "a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons". He also maintained that it was "degrading for actors to compete against one another".