The Night the Oscars Stopped: How an Assassination Attempt on President Reagan Delayed (and Ultimately Saved) the 1981 Oscars

He did it all for Jodie Foster. 

When 25-year-old John Hinckley Jr. fired six shots at Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, the newly-elected president wasn’t the shooter’s main target. A few years earlier, when Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver was released, Hinckley became obsessed with Jodie Foster (who was just 12 when she played the Oscar-nominated part of an underage sex worker). 

After failing to get Foster’s attention in other ways — like stalking her — Hinckley developed a plan to assassinate Reagan to impress her. He put the plan into action two months after Reagan’s first inauguration, just after the president was finishing up a speech at the Washington Hilton Hotel. As Reagan exited the building and headed toward his presidential limousine, six shots rang out in close succession. 

The first bullet hit Press Secretary Jim Brady in the head. The second hit D.C. police officer Tom Delahanty in the back of the neck. The third bullet lodged into a building across the street while the fourth was blocked by Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, who jumped into the line of fire and caught a bullet in his abdomen. The fifth and six bullets hit the limo, one of which — the final bullet — ricocheted off the rear quarter panel and into the president. The bullet entered under Reagan’s left arm and lodged itself one inch from his heart.

Hinckley was apprehended at the scene of the shooting as Reagan was rushed to George Washington University Hospital. Those with him originally presumed he was unharmed — so that’s what Dan Rather and his fellow news anchors at the time reported for the first hour.

News of the shooting — and how Reagan hadn’t been shot — reached the president’s former hometown of Hollywood as hundreds were busy setting up for the 53rd Academy Awards, which was to be hosted by The Tonight Show’s Johnny Carson. The star-studded ceremony was set to begin in just four-and-a-half hours.

But there was already a bit of a crisis unfurling on the West Coast, too. “The show was scheduled for Monday, March 30th — the Oscars were always on Mondays back then — Saturday and Sunday were rehearsal days and the Saturday rehearsals went well,” explains Harrison Engle, who produced the film portions of the 53rd Academy Awards and several others. “During rehearsals, I was sitting behind director Marty Pasetta who had his master script, which was four inches thick and marked with every camera move and close-up — it had very elaborate notes. Then, on Sunday afternoon, after two days of rehearsals, they call for a break and we all go up to the cafeteria and it’s like, 400 people working on this show. Then, when we came back, someone had stolen Marty Posetta’s master script.”

It was immediately clear to everyone that the show couldn’t go on without the master script. “It wasn’t like he could just print another one. It was in a binder with detailed, handwritten notes. It couldn’t be replaced. Everyone turned white,” he recalls. 

So, they went into emergency lockdown mode. “They locked down the building and security guards went through the whole Dorothy Chandler building from top to bottom, turning over every trash can, checking every closet. It was an elaborate physical search to find the script, but it never turned up,” he says. 

This meant Pasetta had to start the herculean effort of rebuilding the script from scratch — but time wasn’t on his side. “By Monday, they were still rebuilding it when, suddenly, Reagan was shot and everybody was dumbfounded.”

About 50 minutes after the shooting, the news was corrected: Reagan had been shot but was in stable condition at the hospital. In another half hour, another correction: Reagan was in surgery, but there was still little reason to worry, as the president was still making his trademark wisecracks, even with a bullet in him. (He famously said to his doctors, “I hope you are all Republicans,” and to his wife, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”)

Despite the rosy reports, Reagan biographer Max Boot, author of Reagan: His Life and Legend, says there was more to the story. “He came much closer to dying than was reported at the time. His aides tried to minimize his condition, but the fact is that he almost bled to death when he arrived at the hospital. Had he arrived a few minutes later, he probably wouldn’t have made it.” (Reagan was also 70, which, at the time, was considered old for a president.)

But, even without the full story, the news of an assassination attempt and a president undergoing emergency surgery was enough for executives at ABC and the Academy to put the show on hold for “at least 24 hours.”

Bracing for potential blowback, the Academy enlisted some of its heavy-hitters to back up the decision in a public statement. “I am terribly shaken up by this. I have a lump in my throat the size of a grapefruit. It brings to mind the horrors of the Kennedys, John Lennon and Martin Luther King,” said actor Gregory Peck. And fellow actor Jack Lemmon concurred, saying, “It’s absolutely the right thing to postpone our show. It’s supposed to be a gala occasion. Our thoughts should not be on such an affair. When I heard the news I found myself crying and wondering what the hell is going on in what seems to be a crazy world. It’s bloody awful.”

After nearly three hours in surgery, at around 7:30 p.m. EST — which would have been a half hour into the Oscars ceremony — news anchors reported the president was in the recovery room, stable and awake. So, the show would go on just one day after it was originally scheduled — at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 31st. 

It was a relief, no doubt. Yes, because the president was in good condition, but also because it gave Pasetta the time he needed to continue marking up the new master script. Plus, as Engle explains, “Everything was in place. Everybody was lined up. To delay it more than that would have been far more difficult.”

The next night, host Johnny Carson took the stage. Instead of kicking off with a monologue poking fun at celebrities, he took a more serious tone. “I’m sure that all of you here and most of you watching tonight understand why we delayed this program for 24 hours,” he said. “Because of the incredible events of yesterday, that old adage, ‘The show must go on’ seemed relatively unimportant. The Academy, ABC Television and all of us connected with the show felt, because of the uncertain outcome as of this time yesterday, it would have been inappropriate to stage a celebration.” 

Looking back, Malkoff believes Carson took the temperature of the room — and the nation — perfectly. He knew his audience needed something different from him that night. “Especially during tragedies, he seemed to know exactly what to talk about and how to delicately work through situations,” he recalls. “If any entertainment figure were to come out there that night, Johnny Carson really was the one who was best equipped to handle it. It was masterful.” And, giving evidence to that mastery, Carson’s tone delicately transitioned from somber to upbeat, saying toward the end of his opening speech, “The news, today, is very good! As you know, the president is in excellent condition at last reports.” With that, the crowd erupted into applause.

Carson explained to the audience that, two weeks prior, their actor-turned-President had taped an address to be played at the 53rd Academy Awards. “We were in contact with the White House about two hours ago, and it was the president’s express wishes that we use that introduction,” he said, adding that Reagan and his wife also “asked for a television set in his room so he could view this program tonight.”

From there, they rolled the tape: Viewers watched Reagan give his pre-recorded, pre-nearly-assassinated address from the White House. “It’s the motion picture that shows us all not only how we look and sound, but more important, how we feel,” he said. “When it achieves its most noble intent, film reveals that people everywhere share common dreams and emotions. Tonight, I applaud all who create, make, distribute, exhibit and attend movies.”

From there, the 53rd Academy Awards went on to be a successful broadcast. “That extra day allowed them to re-plot out all the camera angles for the show and get a handle on it,” says Engle. “Otherwise, if we had to go on Monday night, I think it would have been a very sloppy show. They were saved from an awful show by Reagan being shot.”

Reagan not only had a full recovery from the shooting; he also experienced a burst of support, which Boot attributes to the “grace under fire that he displayed.” 

Secret Service Agent Tim McCarthy also fully recovered. D.C. Officer Delahanty suffered nerve damage and was forced to retire. Press Secretary Jim Brady experienced the worst of it. His brain never fully recovered from the injury, and he spent the next 33 years in a wheelchair before succumbing to his injuries in 2014. However, it’s worth noting that Brady accomplished some incredibly important work for gun control advocacy in his remaining years.

As for Hinckley, he was found not guilty due to insanity in 1982 and lived in psychiatric care until 2016, when he was released with restrictions. In 2022, all restrictions were lifted — and he’s now trying to make it in the entertainment business as a musician.