23 Oscars Facts And Records About The Academy Awards

1.

Eva Marie Saint is currently the oldest living Oscar winner, at 98 years old. She’s actually older than the Oscars themselves, which started five years after she was born.

2.

The shortest performance to ever win an acting Oscar was given by Beatrice Straight. She was on screen for only 5 minutes and 2 seconds in Network in 1976.

3.

A total of 10 children have been nominated for competitive acting awards before their 12th birthday. Two of them (Tatum O’Neal and Anna Paquin) even won.

Here’s the full breakdown of child nominees:

4.

Only one person has ever won two Oscars for the same performance, and that’s Harold Russell, a nonprofessional actor who lost both hands in World War II.

The Academy’s board of directors didn’t actually think Russell would win in his category, so at the last minute (literally the night before!), they created a special Oscar on his behalf.

5.

Only one person has ever been able to legally sell their Oscar at an auction, and that’s also Harold Russell.

The then-president of The Academy, Karl Malden, tried to convince Russell not to sell his Oscar, even offering him a “$20,000 interest-free loan” to return it. Despite objection, Russell sold it to a then-anonymous buyer for $60,500.

6.

The only person to ever win an Oscar for playing a real-life Oscar winner is Cate Blanchett, who portrayed Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator in 2004.

FYI: Renée Zellweger obviously won her second Oscar for playing Judy Garland in the 2019 biopic Judy, but Garland (an Honorary Oscar winner) never won a ~competitive~ Oscar, so technically, Zellweger’s win doesn’t count toward that particular stat.

7.

And the only actor to win for playing a fictional Oscar nominee is Maggie Smith. She won Best Supporting Actress in 1979 for her role as Diana Barrie in California Suite.

8.

Kate Hepburn holds the record for the most acting Oscar wins. All four were for Best Actress, and she received 12 Best Actress nominations in total.

9.

Walt Disney has won the most Oscars of any person, with 22 total awards. He also holds the record for the most Oscars won in a single night, with four.

And here are all of Walt Disney’s nominations and wins from 1954, if you’re curious.

10.

In three separate instances, two different actors have won Oscars for playing the same character. The most recent example of this is Rita Moreno and Ariana DeBose, who both played Anita in their respective West Side Story movies.

11.

The first time two actors won for playing the same character was when Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro received Oscars for playing Vito Corleone in The Godfather and The Godfather Part II.

12.

And the only other time this has happened was when Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix both won for playing the Joker at the 2009 and 2020 ceremonies.

13.

Since the Academy Awards began in 1929, only 16 Oscars have been given out posthumously. Of those 16, only two were in the acting categories: Heath Ledger and Peter Finch.

14.

Midnight Cowboy is the only X-rated movie to win Best Picture. The 1969 movie won three Oscars in total, from seven nominations.

15.

Hattie McDaniel was the first Black person to be nominated for an Oscar, and she won Best Supporting Actress in 1940 for her work in Gone with the Wind.

16.

Three actors have straight-up refused to accept their Oscars — the most famous being Marlon Brando in 1973 after winning Best Actor for The Godfather.

17.

A few years prior to Brando’s refusal, George C. Scott declined his Best Actor win for Patton (1970) because he “did not feel himself to be in any competition with other actors.”

18.

And the first person to refuse their Oscar was Dudley Nichols. He declined his then-titled Best Writing, Screenplay award for The Informer in 1936 due to a union boycott.

19.

The shortest Oscars speech ever was by Patty Duke, who simply said “thank you” upon winning Best Supporting Actress in 1963.

20.

Edith Head is the most-awarded and most-nominated woman in Oscars history, with 8 wins from 35 nominations. She’s so iconic that Pixar literally used her as inspiration when creating the character Edna Mode in The Incredibles.

21.

No one has ever won the Best Actor Oscar for their debut performance, but four have won it for Best Actress.

22.

No film has won Oscars in all four acting categories, but three have won “The Big 5,” aka Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, and Actress.

23.

And finally, there have been six ties on Oscar night, two of which occurred in the acting categories (the most famous being between Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand in 1969).