The Continental (song) as a duet with Graham Preskett on "The Steve Howe Album" in 1979. The Continental (song) "The Continental" is a song written by Con Conrad with lyrics by Herb Magidson, and was introduced by Ginger Rogers in the 1934 film, "The Gay Divorcee". "The Continental" was the first song to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Major record hits at the time of introduction included Jolly Coburn and Leo Reisman. In 1952 Harry James released a recording on the album "Hollywood's Best" (Columbia B-319 and CL-6224) with Rosemary Clooney on vocals. A later version by Maureen McGovern reached
Academy Award for Best Original Song always been five nominees, except in 2013 when one was disqualified. The first film to receive multiple nominations was "Fame" in 1980. Only four films have featured three nominated songs: "Beauty and the Beast", "The Lion King", "Dreamgirls", and "Enchanted". "Dreamgirls" and "Enchanted" lost on every nomination: "An Inconvenient Truth" original song "I Need to Wake Up" defeated all three of the nominated songs from "Dreamgirls", while "Falling Slowly" from "Once" defeated all three of "Enchanted"s nominations. After these two consecutive defeats, a new rule was instated in June 2008 that a film could have no more than two songs