Movie Musings: Disney and More

Oscar-Winning Archives Part 1

Every movie fan knows that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gives away awards each year. As they’re more commonly known, the “Oscars,” are a series of annual awards recognizing distinguished achievement in film. The Oscar will celebrate its 90th anniversary in 2018. The first awards were presented on May 16th, 1929, honoring the films of both 1927 and 1928. The Academy Awards consists of 24 different award categories, including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Original Score, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and many others. In the next series of three blogs, I’d like to acknowledge some record-breaking statistics highlighting wins (or lack thereof) and nominations. We’ll start with the low-down on acting nominations.

Meryl Streep is an actress who has won three Oscars out but has an outstanding 20 nominations! (Interestingly she is NOT the person with the most total nominations…more on that in a future blog…) Streep won Best Supporting Actress in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Best Actress in Sophie’s Choice (1982), and Best Actress in The Iron Lady (2011). Her first two consecutive nominations for The Deer Hunter (1978) and “Kramer vs. Kramer,” both also won the Oscar for Best Picture of the year.  

Walter Brennan is an actor recognized with as many acting awards as Streep, but achieved three wins with only four nominations: Best Supporting Actor in Come and Get It (1936), Best Supporting Actor in Kentucky (1938), and Best Supporting Actor in The Westerner (1940). He was also nominated for Sergeant York (1941). Walter Brennan was the very first actor in the history of movies to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. (He won for “Come and Get It,” as a result of the “supporting” category being created by the Academy that year. In the later years of his career, Brennan made three films for the Walt Disney Studios, each of which were produced in the later years of Walt Disney’s life, Those Calloways (1965), The Gnome-Mobile (1967), and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968). 

And now for the “lack thereof” recognitions. Deborah Kerr, Glenn Close, and Thelma Ritter have each been nominated six times, but disappointingly never won. Nominations for Kerr: Best Actress in Edward, My Son (1949), Best Actress in From Here to Eternity (1953), Best Actress in The King and I (1956), Best Actress in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), Best Actress in Separate Tables (1958), and Best Actress in The Sundowners (1960). Coincidentally, Deborah Kerr was presented an Honorary Oscar by Glenn Close in 1994. Nominations for Close: Best Supporting Actress in The World According to Garp (1982), Best Supporting Actress in The Big Chill (1983), Best Supporting Actress in The Natural (1984), Best Actress in Fatal Attraction (1987), Best Actress in Dangerous Liaisons (1988), and Best Actress in Albert Nobbs (2011). In 2004, Glenn Close won a Golden Globe for her performance as Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter (2004), a made-for-television remake of the 1968 film of the same name that starred Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn who won her third Oscar for her performance as Eleanor. 

On Thelma Ritter’s fifth nominations, Best Supporting Actress in Pillow Talk (1959) instead of going to the Oscars, Ritter threw a “Come watch me loose again,” party at her house. Her co-star in “Pillow Talk,” Doris Day, was also nominated in the category of Best Actress that year, but she lost as well. Ritter and Day were reunited four years later in the romantic comedy, Move Over, Darling (1963). Other nominations for Ritter: Best Supporting Actress in All About Eve (1950), Best Supporting Actress in The Mating Season (1951), Best Supporting Actress in With a Song in My Heart (1952), Best Supporting Actress in Pickup on South Street (1953), Best Supporting Actress in Pillow Talk (1959), and Best Supporting Actress in Birdman of Alcatraz (1962).

Katharine Hepburn won four Oscars out of 12 nominations, all of which were in the category of Best Actress. Wins: Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968) (tied that year with Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl (1968), one of six times in Oscar history where the awards has had a tie. It is the only time for the category of Best Actress) and On Golden Pond (1981). Hepburn’s tenth nomination became her second win in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” She had been nominated that year against Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark (1967). 

“Wait Until Dark,” was Audrey Hepburn’s fifth and final career nomination. Three years prior to that, Audrey Hepburn had been neglected by the Oscars to be nominated for her performance as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964) and the winner that year was Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins (1964), who ironically, had played Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady,” on Broadway. As a result of that, Katherine Hepburn wrote Audrey a message that said “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get it one day for a part that doesn’t rate it.” Despite that, Katharine beat her in ‘67 and Audrey was unfortunately never nominated for an Oscar again.

Peter O’Toole is an eight-time nominated actor all in the category of Best Actor, but he also never won. Nominations: Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Becket (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), My Favorite Year (1982), and Venus (2006). In “Lawrence of Arabia,” he and co-star Omar Sharif became good friends and both received Oscar nominations for their performances in the movie, though neither won. (O’Toole was beaten by Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and Sharif was beaten in the category of Best Supporting Actor by Ed Begley in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)). O’Toole and Sharif were, however, reunited in four other films, including The Night of the Generals (1967), The Rainbow Thief (1990), Gulliver’s Travels (1996) and One Night with the King (2006). O’Toole was awarded an Honorary Oscar in 2003.

Daniel Day-Lewis is currently the only Academy-Award-Winning actor ever to win three Oscars in the category of Best Actor. Wins: Best Actor in My Left Foot (1989), Best Actor in There Will Be Blood (2007) and Best Actor in Lincoln (2012). Day-Lewis was also the very first actor ever to win an Oscar for a performance in a Steven Spielberg film with “Lincoln.” Since then, one additional actor won for a role in a Spielberg film: Mark Rylance in the category of Best Supporting Actor in Bridge of Spies (2015).

Like Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson has also won three Oscars, two in the category of Best Actor and one in the category of Best Supporting Actor. (His nominations totaled 12). Wins: Best Actor in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Best Supporting Actor in Terms of Endearment (1983), and Best Actor in As Good as It Gets (1997). The first two also won the Best Picture Oscar. Nicholson also appeared under the direction of James L. Brooks in “Terms of Endearment,” and “As Good as It Gets,” as well as Broadcast News (1987) and How Do You Know (2010).

There are some Oscar-winners who “finally” won, but not until after losing several others: Kate Winslet, Shirley MacLaine, and Geraldine Page. Winslet won her one and only Oscar in the category of Best Actress for The Reader (2008), after having lost the award five times. Nominations: Best Supporting Actress in Sense and Sensibility (1995), Best Actress in Titanic (1997), Best Supporting Actress in Iris (2001), Best Actress in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and Best Actress in Little Children (2006). She was also nominated again in the category of Best Supporting Actress in Steve Jobs (2015). 

Shirley MacLaine also won her only Oscar in the category of Best Actress in Terms of Endearment (1983), but also lost the award five times. Nominations: Best Actress in Some Came Running (1958), The Apartment (1960), Best Actress in Irma la Douce (1963), Best Documentary, Features in The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir (1975), and Best Actress in The Turning Point (1977). 

Geraldine Page won her Oscar for Best Actress for The Trip to Bountiful (1985) after having lost seven previous nominations. Nominations: Best Supporting Actress in Hondo (1953), Best Actress in Summer and Smoke (1961), Best Actress in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), Best Supporting Actress in You’re a Big Boy Now (1966), Best Supporting Actress in Pete “n” Tillie (1972), Best Actress in Interiors (1978), and Best Supporting Actress in The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984).