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Our Greatest Actor and Actress: The NominationsDateline: 29th October, 2001 It's been fascinating watching the nominations for our greatest living actor and actress polls coming in. Inevitably, given the international nature of the Internet, purely theatre actors took second place to those who specialise in TV and/or film. I suspect that if we had two more categories - best stage actor and best stage actress - there would be fewer nominations (and voters) in them. It's been particularly interesting watching the various fan clubs marshalling their members. Colin Firth lovers were the first off, with many nominations during the first day. Helen Mirren fans weren't far behind, and at first it looked as though these two had it sewn up. At least, it did within 48 hours of nominations being invited. After that, things began to change. There was a reasonably large smattering of Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes nominations in the first two days. In fact, Dame Judi has gained more nominations than any other (except one, whom we'll come to later) and these nominations have been constant: right from day one - there has been a significant number of her supporters every day. Alan Rickman was a bit of a late starter - hardly any in the first three days - as was Kate Winslett. However towards the end of the first week and right into the second, the number of their supporters increased daily, bringing them into the top rank. It wasn't long after that the Sean Bean supporters came out, and he'd caught up to Colin Firth by the beginning of the second week. Also rising slowly were Emma Thompson, Maggie Smith and Vanessa Redgrave, the latter two having a very slow start. One of the most consistent was Derek Jacobi, with one or more nominations arriving every day, but this wasn't enough to take him into the magic top five. By Monday morning of the second week, it looked like Branagh, Fiennes, Rickman, Firth, Bean and Jacobi would be the contenders for the male title, and Dench, Mirren, Winslett, Thompson, Smith and Redgrave for the female. But then the amazing machine that is the Michael Crawford Fan Club got to work, and in two days he jumped to over 160 nominations, around three times as many as any other. By the Wednesday his nominations had topped 200. I have to say that there was an attempt at cheating there, with one person trying to nominate Crawford a dozen times. It was a very blatant attempt, and it was recognised and foiled immediately. Wednesday of that week brought out the John Hannah fans, five of them, followed by six more on Thursday, leaving him at that point with just one less than Hopkins but many more than Alan Howard, Simon Russell Beale, Ian McKellan, and a host of other top names. Meanwhile Judi Dench continued to pull ahead of the field in the actress stakes, well ahead of Helen Mirren and Kate Winslett, the only ones who had any chance of staying with her after the first week. NEXT >> The Nominations Articles Indices:
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