The Big Picture
A dog named P.H. Vazak was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards as a front for a disappointed screenwriter.
Robert Towne, the screenwriter, used his dog’s name instead of his own on the film
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan
because he was unhappy with the final result.
There have been several instances of “fake” Oscar nominees, including the Coen Brothers and Carole Eastman, who used aliases for various reasons.
It’s the doggone truth: A canine was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 57th Academy Awards for his work co-writing 1984’s Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. And, no, co-nominee Michael Austin (certified human) did not just do all the writing while the credited dog, P.H. Vazak, simply sat beside him admiring his work. Nor was this a matter of some ingenious canine or the Academy willingly recognizing a dog for being a good boy. Rather, P.H. Vazak (a very real dog) was a front for a disappointed screenwriter. And while this is the first time a dog ever got nominated for an Oscar, it’s not unheard of for Oscar nominees to be not exactly as they appear.
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
A missing heir of respected Scottish family, raised in African jungles by animals, finally returns to his estate only to realize that difference between the two worlds is really significant.
Release Date March 30, 1984
Director Hugh Hudson
Runtime 143
Robert Towne Was Unhappy With ‘Greystoke,’ so His Dog Got the Credit
Image via Warner Bros.
P.H. Vazak was a pup who belonged to acclaimed screenwriter Robert Towne, one of the most famous screenwriters in the industry with credits that include the first two Mission: Impossible movies, Shampoo, The Last Detail, and Chinatown (for which he won the Oscar). Unfortunately, he never broke through as a director, only jumping behind the camera for four features during his career. Not included in that list — though it was originally supposed to be — is Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. (And, yes, that is the full title.)
The film, starring Christopher Lambert and Andie McDowell, was in development in the mid-70s, and Towne was partially inspired by Jane Goodall and her work with primates as a way to re-imagine a more realistic take on Tarzan. But, as he was writing the script, he couldn’t help but envision the entire film himself. Towne leaned heavily into description rather than dialogue, telling the A.V. Club years later, “It’s just a bunch of descriptions, and then it became embarrassingly apparent to me that those were what I saw when I wrote them down. There was nobody else who could see them, so I needed to direct.” But before moving onto Greystoke, Towne directed what was supposed to be a much smaller scale sports drama in Personal Best. Conflicts over budget and box office performance led to a falling out, and Towne ended up filing a lawsuit against Warner Bros. and producer David Geffen, which resulted in Geffen and the studio removing Towne from Greystoke.
Towne was replaced with director Hugh Hudson, who had just won Warner Bros. a Best Picture Oscar with Chariots of Fire, and Hudson recruited the aforementioned Michael Austin for rewrites. Though the script was significantly reworked, Towne was still granted a writing credit. He later said the film “was then, is now, and always will be the biggest creative regret of my life.” Towne was so unhappy that he had his name replaced with that of his dog in the credits. Hudson didn’t blame him for it, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “Robert Towne never liked it, of course. Why would he? It was his baby to begin with, but he sold his baby, to put it that way.” The film was well received and was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Would Towne’s dog have been brought on stage had it won? We’ll never know, as Greystoke lost the award to the script for that year’s Best Picture juggernaut Amadeus. P.H. Vazak would not be the first dog to win an Oscar. He also wouldn’t be the first Oscar nominee who is not quite what they seem.
Related The Academy Changed Its Rules After This Actor Won 3 Oscars in 5 Years This voting bloc lost their Oscar voting privileges.
A Brief History of “Fake” Oscar Nominees
Image via Sony Pictures Releasing
Robert Towne may be the only person to rely on his dog for an alias, but there have been several other “fake” Oscar nominees. The Coen Brothers have twice been nominated for editing their films (Fargo and No Country for Old Man) while electing to use the single credit of Roderick Jaynes, partly out of humility and partly out of guild regulations. This is also likely why Jean-Marc Vallée’s editing nomination for Dallas Buyer’s Club was under the name John Mac McMurphy. Carole Eastman, nominated for writing Five Easy Pieces, went by the name Aiden Joyce in order to retain anonymity in Hollywood. Charlie Kaufman shared the screenplay credit for Adaptation with his brother Donald, even though no such brother exists. Donald’s credit was merely an extension of the film’s meta narrative. But there is a dark side to fake nominees, as well.
Many screenwriters were targeted during the 1950s by Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities. As a result, those screenwriters were blacklisted and could not work under their own names. Yet that didn’t stop them from winning Oscars. Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson won Best Adapted Screenplay for The Bridge on the River Kwai, but the credit and award went to Pierre Boulee, the author of the novel on which it was based. Nathan E. Douglas was an invented name to cover for Nedrick Young for his work with Harold Jacob Smith on The Defiant Ones. And Dalton Trumbo, famously portrayed by Bryan Cranston in the filmTrumbo, won twice under different names: The pen name Robert Rich was used for The Brave One, and writer Ian McLellan Hunter’s name was used for Roman Holiday. Plenty of fake people have been nominated, but it begs the question: why not real dogs?
Dogs Deserve Recognition for Their Film Work!
Dogs have always been a draw for audiences, whether they’re animated like in the Paw Patrol films or appearing as co-stars in 1980s buddy cop movies like K-9 and Turner & Hooch. But the trend goes back further … even before TV icon Lassie! One of the earliest movis stars was a German Shepard named Rin Tin Tin, a dog who was a lynchpin in Warner Bros.’ early financial success. For years, a rumor circulated that the dog actually received the most votes for Best Actor at the first Academy Awards, but he was deemed eligible to maintain an air of seriousness around the burgeoning award show. This story was so prevalent Susan Orlean printed it as fact in her biography of Rin Tin Tin, but it has since been disproven as an urban legend. But a dog winning a major award isn’t as crazy as it may seem.
The Palm d’or is the most prestigious prize at the highly esteemed Cannes Film Festival, with winners including Parasite, The Tree of Life, and The Piano among many others. But who cares about that honor when they also give out the Palm Dogaward for best dog in a film playing at the festival. The prize has been a part of the festival since 2001 with winners including Doug from Up and Cliff Booth’s (Brad Pitt) dog Brandy in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. Uggie, the Jack Russell from The Artist, won the award in 2011 and managed to ride the hype to a fan-sponsored Oscar campaign, which was supported by Uggie’s co-star James Cromwell (who knows a thing or two about working with animals in movies.)
This year’s Palm Dog was awarded to Messi, the border collie from the Palm D’or winner Anatomy of a Fall. Unfortunately, the Oscars still has a bias against dogs, so despite Messi’s great work as Snoop, Messi failed to get nominated. Will the Oscars ever learn to embrace man’s best friend? Only time will tell.
Greystroke: The Legend of Tarzan is available to rent on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.
Watch on Prime Video