Academy Awards Youngest and Oldest

Oscar Winners and Nominees from the 1970s & 1980s - Ages 8 to 80

Jan 21, 2008 John K. Davis

No other twenty year period in Academy Awards history probably had such a wide range of ages among its Oscar nominees. Here they are from Tatum O'Neal to Groucho Marx.

Some of these actors and actresses were rewarded because they were finishing long and distinguished careers; others because they were judged to be up and coming new talent. Here are the oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees from 1970 to 1989.

Oldest Oscar Winners and Nominees

• In 1973, at the age of 83, Groucho Marx was presented an honorary Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences “in recognition of his brilliant creativity and for the unequaled achievements of the Marx Brothers in the art of motion picture comedy.”
• Like Marx, George Burns was a veteran vaudeville, movie and television personality, often as second banana to his wife Gracie Allen. In 1975, he became, at the age of 80, the oldest actor to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in The Sunshine Boys.
• Known mostly for her work on the British stage and screen, Peggy Ashcroft became the oldest actress to win Best Supporting Actress for her role in Passage to India (1984). At the age of 77, it was her only Oscar nomination.
• At the age of 76, Henry Fonda became the oldest person to win Best Actor for his performance as the grouchy retired college professor in On Golden Pond (1981). The movie also co-starred his daughter, Jane Fonda, and Katherine Hepburn who won her final Oscar as Fonda’s patient, but feisty, wife.
• In 1984, Sir Ralph Richardson, age 82, became the oldest nominee for best supporting actor for his role in Greystoke. He died shortly after the film was released and the nomination was given posthumously. (Hal Holbrook, 83, set a new record in 2007.)
• In 1985, John Huston, at 79, became the oldest person nominated for best director for Prizzi’s Honor. Huston’s career in Hollywood dated back to 1930 as a writer. He directed his first film, The Maltese Falcon, in 1941. He was also an accomplished character actor. Roman Polanksi, 69, is the oldest to have won (The Pianist, 2002).
• Jessica Tandy, nearing 81, became the oldest woman to win Best Actress for her performance in Driving Miss Daisy (1989). A veteran of the stage, as well as movies, Tandy was the first actress to play Blanche DuBois in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. She often appeared on stage and in movies with her husband Hume Cronyn.

Youngest Oscar Winners and Nominees

• Tatum O’Neal, age 8, became the youngest person to win a Best Supporting Actress Award for her performance as a street-wise “con-man” in Paper Moon (1973). The film also starred her father, Ryan O’Neal. She continues to do some acting.
• In 1979, eight year-old Justin Henry became the youngest person to be nominated for best supporting actor for his role as a small boy caught in the middle of a messy divorce in Kramer vs. Kramer. He has appeared in films since Kramer, but without the same success.
• The year following Kamer, Timothy Hutton became the youngest person to win Best Supporting Actor for his role as the troubled son in Ordinary People. Since winning at the age of 20, Hutton has had a productive career as an actor, director, and producer, most notably in a successful TV series of the early 2000s, A Nero Wolfe Mystery.
• 1986 saw the youngest-ever Best Actress Oscar go to Marlee Matlin, 21, for her work as the mute girl, Sarah, in The Children of a Lesser God. Although several acting awards have gone to actors and actresses for playing mutes, Matlin is unique in that she actually lost her hearing when an infant. Since winning the Oscar, she has gone on to have a successful career combining acting, producing, and doing work for charitable causes.

For more information on the Oscars see: Osborne, Robert, 75 Years of the Oscar. New York: Abbeville Press, 2003; The Official Academy Award Site, Oscars, Oscars

Other Oscar Info: Recent Oscar Winners and Nominees, Oscar Nominees and Winners – 1950s, Academy Awards from the 1940s

The copyright of the article Academy Awards Youngest and Oldest in Classic Films is owned by John K. Davis. Permission to republish Academy Awards Youngest and Oldest in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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Feb 16, 2009 11:32 AM

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