40 Fun Facts About Ordinary People

The Oscars where Ordinary People won Best Picture were delayed a day after which president was shot?

Ronald Reagan survived the shooting on March 30, 1981, and the ceremony moved to the following night. Johnny Carson hosted for the third year running.

Which pope named Ordinary People as one of his four favorite films?

Leo XIV, the first pope born in the United States, listed it beside It's a Wonderful Life, The Sound of Music and Life Is Beautiful. He was born in Chicago, the city whose suburbs the film depicts.

Which Hollywood leading man won the Best Director Oscar for Ordinary People, the first film he directed?

Robert Redford bought the rights to the novel before it was even published, planning to direct it and not to act in it.

Which sitcom star, once TV's Laura Petrie, played the icy mother Beth Jarrett in Ordinary People?

Mary Tyler Moore won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama for the part and an Oscar nomination, a sharp break from The Dick Van Dyke Show and her later hit as Mary Richards.

Which actor became the youngest Best Supporting Actor winner as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People?

Timothy Hutton was 20 and known only for television movies when he was cast. In his speech he thanked his father, the actor Jim Hutton, who had died in 1979.

Which Robert De Niro film lost the Best Picture Oscar to Ordinary People at the 1981 ceremony?

Raging Bull arrived with eight nominations, the joint most that year, and won two, for its lead actor and its editing. Its director Martin Scorsese also went home empty-handed.

Which Baroque piece, obscure for centuries, did the film Ordinary People help make popular?

Pachelbel's Canon is heard in the film in Jean-François Paillard's arrangement. The Paillard recording then climbed to number one on Billboard's classical chart in 1982 and stayed there for months.

Which future sitcom star auditioned for Ordinary People while the director flossed his teeth?

Michael J. Fox was then unknown, newly arrived in Los Angeles, and read for the part of Conrad. He reportedly failed to impress, but Family Ties soon made him a star.

What were Buck and Conrad Jarrett doing when a sudden storm killed Buck, before Ordinary People begins?

Sailing together, the brothers were caught by the weather and only Conrad came home. His guilt at outliving the brother everyone admired drives the whole story.

Which former teacher wrote Ordinary People, a first novel that began life as a short story?

Judith Guest gave up her teaching job to finish it and spent three years on the book. She was some 200 pages in before she realized the short story had become a novel.

Which star of the sitcom Taxi earned an Oscar nomination as psychiatrist Dr. Berger in Ordinary People?

Judd Hirsch lost the award to his young co-star, then waited 42 years for his second nomination, for The Fabelmans.

Which Canadian actor played Calvin Jarrett in Ordinary People yet missed out on an Oscar nomination?

Donald Sutherland was the only one of the four leads left off the Oscar ballot, an omission Entertainment Weekly ranked among the biggest acting snubs ever. He did receive a Golden Globe nomination.

Which actress, later Cora in Downton Abbey, made her film debut as Conrad's girlfriend in Ordinary People?

Elizabeth McGovern was still a student at Juilliard and needed special permission to film. A year later Ragtime brought her an Oscar nomination.

Which school sport does Conrad Jarrett secretly quit in Ordinary People, to his mother's fury?

Swimming keeps Conrad around water, which reminds him too much of his late brother, so he leaves the team and tells no one at home. When Beth hears it from a friend, the family's worst argument follows.

Which of the Great Lakes claimed Buck Jarrett's life in the accident that haunts Ordinary People?

Lake Michigan borders the wealthy suburbs north of Chicago where the family lives. The accident happened more than a year before the story opens and is revealed only in fragments and flashbacks.

Which friend from the psychiatric hospital dies by suicide in Ordinary People, sending Conrad into crisis?

Karen had left the hospital before Conrad, and he treated her recovery as proof that his own could last. News of her death sends him to Dr. Berger for the session that finally breaks his guilt.

Which new girl at school becomes Conrad Jarrett's girlfriend in Ordinary People?

Jeannine has a difficult recent past of her own, which lets the two confide in each other. Comforting her when she cries shows Conrad that he is able to help someone else.

Which sport takes Beth and Calvin Jarrett to Texas in Ordinary People, on a trip that ends in a fight?

Golf is the reason for the trip, a tournament Calvin hopes will let them forget their troubles. Instead Beth tells him there that she will never forgive Conrad.

In the film Ordinary People, what does Beth refuse to do with Conrad, sparking his pre-Christmas outburst?

Asked to pose for a photo with her son, Beth keeps putting it off until Conrad swears at her in front of his grandparents. Soon afterwards she learns he has been lying about where he goes after school.

What is Calvin Jarrett's profession in Ordinary People, the source of the family's comfortable life?

Tax attorney Calvin runs a small firm with his partner Ray Hanley. Providing so well for his wife and sons was long a source of great pride to him.

Which wealthy suburb north of Chicago is home to the Jarrett family in Ordinary People?

Lake Forest gives the story its setting of manicured comfort. Roger Ebert praised the film for tracing the family's troubles to the people themselves rather than to suburban affluence.

In the novel Ordinary People, which school activity is the one place Conrad Jarrett feels at peace?

Choir suits Conrad because its perfectionist director cares only about the sound and takes no personal interest in the singers. Being left alone lets him relax.

In Ordinary People, what does Conrad angrily say his mother never did during his months in hospital?

Beth did not visit him once, and in the film Conrad adds that she would have come for Buck. Her reply is that Buck would never have been in the hospital at all.

Which actress, playing Loretta Lynn, beat the star of Ordinary People to the Best Actress Oscar?

Sissy Spacek won for Coal Miner's Daughter, in which she did her own singing. Goldie Hawn, Ellen Burstyn and Gena Rowlands were the other nominees passed over that night.

In the novel Ordinary People, which Christmas present does Conrad Jarrett receive with little enthusiasm?

A car is the big surprise, and his grandfather Howard is thrilled about it, but Conrad neither needs nor wants one. His flat reaction sets his parents quarrelling on Christmas Day.

In the novel Ordinary People, what is Conrad Jarrett given in the hospital for his severe depression?

Shock treatment, the electric kind, was part of his months as an inpatient. He came to trust only one doctor there, Dr. Crawford, who then referred him to Berger.

Which actor was originally cast as Calvin Jarrett in Ordinary People before a pay dispute with the studio?

Gene Hackman dropped out when he and the studio could not agree terms. His replacement gave a performance that Entertainment Weekly later counted among the great Oscar snubs.

Which friend, who drives Conrad to school, makes peace with him at the end of the novel Ordinary People?

Joe Lazenby was close to both brothers and grieves for Buck too, which is why Conrad finds him painful to be around. In the epilogue Conrad calls at his house and the friendship resumes.

Which organization ranked the novel Ordinary People among the 100 most challenged books of the 1990s?

The American Library Association tracks such challenges. Schools assign the novel for its teenage hero, and objections have focused on the subject matter and a brief love scene near the end.

Which composer, an Oscar winner for The Way We Were, is credited with the music for Ordinary People?

Marvin Hamlisch followed this score with Sophie's Choice two years later. On Broadway his music for A Chorus Line had already won a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize.

In Ordinary People, where did Calvin Jarrett spend the boyhood that made him so proud to be a provider?

An orphanage was his home because he never knew his father and his mother died when he was eleven. A man named Arnold Bacon later became his mentor and father figure, then dropped him when he married Beth.

Which Thomas Hardy novel is Conrad Jarrett studying in English class at the start of Ordinary People?

Jude the Obscure is a pointed choice, since its hero also attempts suicide. Another Hardy story reached the same Oscar night: the film Tess was a rival nominee for Best Picture.

In the novel Ordinary People, Conrad compares himself in therapy to the eldest son of which TV family?

The Waltons gave 1970s television John-Boy, the eldest of seven children, who grows up to be a journalist and novelist. The family's goodnights to him became a catchphrase of the decade.

Which screenwriter, later a writer on three Spider-Man films, won an Oscar for adapting Ordinary People?

Alvin Sargent had already won the same award for Julia three years earlier. The Writers Guild later ranked this script 58th on its list of the 101 greatest screenplays.

Which publisher took Ordinary People as its first unsolicited manuscript in 26 years?

Viking Press bought it from an author with no agent, then waited eight months to release it. One earlier rejection letter had said the writing did not sustain interest.

In the novel Ordinary People, where does Beth Jarrett travel after her marriage to Calvin breaks down?

Europe is her destination, and she goes without saying goodbye to Conrad. The break comes after Calvin suggests that they see a marriage counselor.

In the novel Ordinary People, to which other Chicago suburb have Calvin and Conrad moved by the epilogue?

Evanston is where father and son set up home together after Beth leaves. During the move Conrad finds his old school drawings, carefully kept by his mother, and takes it as a sign that she cared.

Which actor, later Jayne in Firefly, plays Conrad's tormentor Kevin Stillman in the film Ordinary People?

Adam Baldwin grew up in the Chicago area, close to where the story is set, and made his screen debut the same year in My Bodyguard.

Which city is both the birthplace of the author of Ordinary People and where Calvin Jarrett grew up?

Detroit is where the novelist started high school before her family moved to nearby Royal Oak. Her characters live far from there, in the suburbs of Chicago.

Which studio released Ordinary People in 1980, turning a $6 million drama into a $90 million hit?

Paramount Pictures opened it in September 1980. The production company was the director's own Wildwood Enterprises, which later made A River Runs Through It and Quiz Show.