Nudity = Oscar!

By Mr. Skin

Since 1927 Hollywood has honored its own with an annual gathering of its most luminous stars and top-tier creative forces, singling out the crowning achievements of the previous year with the presentation of foot-high golden men affectionately known as "The Oscars."

Officially the Oscars are called The Academy Awards and, even more officially, they are the highest accolades doled out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences each February. Among the most familiar categories are Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. What you may not know is that the Oscars are also a hotbed of breast actresses.

Here at Skin Central, we aim to celebrate nudity in film in ever new and evolving ways. When examining this year's roster of thespians nominated for Best Actress in a Lead Role, it occurred to me that each one of them had previously performed on camera in the buff!

Cum-sider the following:

NOMINEE	2006 FILM	NUDE IN
Pen?pe Cruz	Volver	8 movies, including Vanilla Sky (2001) (Picture: 1)
Judi Dench	Notes on a Scandal	2 movies, including A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968) (Picture: 1)
Helen Mirren	The Queen	13 movies, including Savage Messiah (1972) (Picture: 1 - 2)
Meryl Streep	The Devil Wears Prada	Silkwood (1983) (Picture: 1)
Kate Winslet	Little Children	8 movies, including Little Children (Picture: 1)

This revelation of ravishers in the raw prompted me to create a new wing of the Skin Laboratories dedicated to the bold new science of Skinenomics. My crack team got to crunching the numbers (among other things) to come up with mam-thematical evidence that proves how appearing naked on screen concretely boosts an actress's odds of winning an Academy Award!

With a guarantee that this year's victor will have illuminated the silver screen with bare skin, I wondered how many previous Best Actress winners had unveiled themselves prior to taking home the trophy. Skinterestingly, every Best Actress honoree since 1988 has flaunted flesh on film!

WINNER	YEAR	FILM	NUDE IN
Jodie Foster	1988	The Accused	3 movies, including The Accused (Picture: 1)
Jessica Tandy	1989	Driving Miss Daisy	Camilla (1994) (Picture: 1)
Kathy Bates	1990	Misery	2 movies, including About Schmidt (2002) (Picture: 1)
Jodie Foster	1991	Silence of the Lambs	3 movies, including Backtrack (1991) (Picture: 1 - 2)
Emma Thompson	1992	Howard's End	6 movies, including The Tall Guy (1989) (Picture: 1)
Holly Hunter	1993	The Piano	7 movies, including The Piano (Picture: 1 - 2)
Jessica Lange	1994	Blue Sky	5 movies, including Blue Sky (Picture: 1)
Susan Sarandon	1995	Dead Man Walking	13 movies, including Pretty Baby (1978) (Picture: 1)
Frances McDormand	1996	Fargo	2 movies, including Short Cuts (1993) (Picture: 1)
Helen Hunt	1997	As Good as It Gets	3 movies, including As Good as It Gets (Picture: 1)
Gwyneth Paltrow	1998	Shakespeare in Love	5 movies, including Shakespeare in Love (Picture: 1)
Hilary Swank	1999	Boys Don't Cry	3 movies, including Boys Don't Cry (Picture: 1)
Julia Roberts	2000	Erin Brockovich	Pretty Woman (1990) (Picture: 1)
Halle Berry	2001	Monster's Ball	3 movies, including Monster's Ball (Picture: 1 - 2)
Nicole Kidman	2002	The Hours	13 movies, including Billy Bathgate (1991) (Picture: 1)
Charlize Theron	2003	Monster	11 movies, including Monster (Picture: 1)
Hilary Swank	2004	Million Dollar Baby	3 movies, including Heartwood (1998) (Picture: 1)
Reese Witherspoon	2005	Walk the Line	Twilight (1998) (Picture: 1)

You'll notice in that list that each of the Best Actresses went nude either in the actual role for which they were saluted or prior to it, while on their way up. Some have even dared to bare numerous times.

The exceptions proving our proposed rule are Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy. Kathy actually peeled down in At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991) (Picture: 1) immediately following her taking top honors for Misery, and then, 11 years later, she nakedly filled movie screens as brazenly as she fills a hot tub opposite Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt.

Five years after Miss Daisy, dandy Miss Tandy deigned to skinny dip in Camilla. She was 84 years old when she got wet all over for us.

The masterful decisions of Bates and Tandy to wait to undrape until after earning an Academy Award should not alter one's perception of the nudity-Oscar connection, as their atypical-for-movie-starlet physiques render these appearances mo(i)st pleasantly surprising.

While on the topic of surprises, one of the very first Hollywood nude scenes in history came courtesy of a future Best Actress--Claudette Colbert, who happened to nab the gold one night in 1934 for It Happened One Night. Two years prior, Claudette gave audiences Roman hands in the Christians-fed-to-lions epic Sign of the Cross (1932) (Picture: 1). Now that's a Colbert report worth watching!

And so, with history on the side of the stripped, please allow me, Mr. Skin, the world's foremost authority when it comes to celebrating nudity in film, to address today's still yet-to-disrobe starlets who have an eye on future Oscar gold.

Many of you may be suffering from the delusion that to appear naked on camera might pose a threat to your credibility as an artist. There may be doubt as to whether you can bust out your bare bits and still be considered a "serious actress." To that, I say: Take a look at the Skintistics on this page.

Serious actresses get seriously naked, and then they win serious awards that, in turn, up their ability to take on more serious parts and win even more serious fortune and fame.

Seriously.

And so it's time to follow their serious (s)examples and join the uncovered club. Your Academy Award is most likely just (your own) two Golden Globes away.