When EBONY interviewed Paul Tazewell, an 2024 EBONY Power 100 awardee last November, the acclaimed costume designer told us he’d be beside himself if he won an Oscar. “I’m so very proud of our work: my team, all the makers, what we created with Wicked…I’m just hoping that it will be embraced by audiences all over the world.”
Well, it has, and Hollywood took note. Tazewell took home the Best Costume Design Oscar at the 97th Academy Awards on March 2, becoming the first Black man to win in the category.
He was first nominated for Best Costume Design for West Side Story in 2022. But winning for Wicked, a film that explores someone who is othered, and finds her strength in spite of it, seems so befitting.
“There was never a Black male designer that I saw that I could follow and could see as inspirational [and] to realize that that’s actually me,” he said in the Oscar press room. “It’s the pinnacle of my career.” He credits the many female designers, like fellow Oscar winner Ruth Carter, with paving the way for designers of color.
Wicked had more moment to shine. The show kicked off with a tribute to Hollywood, which suffered major devastation in the L.A. wildfires. Oscar nominees Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande then lit up the stage, soaring with their renditions of “Home” from The Wiz and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow ” from The Wizard of Oz, and ending with a joint performance of “Defying Gravity,” featured in the Oscar-nominated film Wicked.
Continuing her winning streak, Zoe Saldaña took home the Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar for her work in Emilia Pérez. Pointing out that her grandmother had migrated to the United States in 1961, she exclaimed, “I am the first American of Dominican Republic origin to accept an Academy Award, and I won’t be the last.”
Oprah and Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg introduced the segment honoring Quincy Jones. “When we’re talking about Black excellence, we’re talking about Quincy Jones,” Goldberg exclaimed, noting that he was the first Black composer nominated for an Oscar. Queen Latifah then performed “Ease on Down the Road” From The Wiz (Jones produced the 1978 recording of the song for the film adaptation of The Wiz) which got Colman Domingo and Erivo up on their feet and grooving.
Oscar winner Morgan Freeman spoke in remembrance of Gene Hackman, who passed away at age 95. Writer Barry Michael Cooper, who wrote New Jack City (1991), Sugar Hill (1994) and Above the Rim (1994) and actors Art Evans, Louis Gossett Jr. and James Earl Jones were included in the “In Memoriam.”
