The Most Promising Frank Langella

In 1971 Frank Langella got nominated for the Golden Globe award for "Most Promising Newcomer - Male." (This Golden Globe award is not part of their current line-up).

Langella was recognized in 1971 for his role in the film Diary of a Mad Housewife.

Since then, Langella has not received another Golden Globe nod. (James Earle Jones actually won the award that year for his role The Great White Hope)

While he has had some TV and film credits of note, Langella has been far more awarded for his stage roles. In fact he has been nominated for five Tony Awards and won three of those times; winning for Seascape (1975), Fortune's Fool (2002), Frost/Nixon (2007), his other nominations were for Dracula (1978) and Match (2004).

It would appear that this decade along with the 70s has been very good for Langella. Along with his Broadway kudos Langella has had some semi-notable film roles in Good Night & Good Luck as well as the opportunity to play Perry White, the Metropolis newpaper editor in Superman Returns.

Yet, maybe Langella will make bigger waves in the later part of this decade. In fact, Langella has recently scored some recognition for his role as a seasoned writer in the low budget film Starting out in the Evening, where a young graduate student tries to resurrect the writers career through her thesis. This film has already scored Langella best actor accolades from the Boston Society of Film Critics, a Satellite Award Nomination, and the runner up best actor credit in the LA Film Critics Awards.

Does Langella have a chance for the best actor Oscar nomination? He's certainly the late-comer in a category I've long concluded is generally decided. But maybe if he gets nominated for a globe he has a chance, but even still, a globe nod is probably not enough.

More likely though, is that Langella will get a chance to shine in next year's film Frost/Nixon which won Langella the Tony Award on Broadway, and will give him a chance to play the part of Richard Nixon on the big screen under the direction of Ron Howard (although some how I imagine that Langella might be directing Howard, rather than the other way around).

Who knows Langella might be 1971s most promising new comer yet (although James Earl Jones is a tough one to out-shine).