Best Acting Oscars - 1950s/1960s
Trivia Which Became a Part of Academy Adward History
The 1950s and 1960s saw Oscars given to a mixture of old and new faces including the first African-American actor and to receive an Oscar.
The Academy Awards in the 1950s and 1960s saw honors given to both old and new timers. Here are some Oscar winners and nominees and accompanying stories from those decades.
The Old Faces
- Gloria Swanson, who made her first confirmed movie in 1915, was nominated for best actress in Sunset Blvd. (1950). She lost to Judy Holliday who starred in Born Yesterday. One of Swanson’s co-stars, Erich von Stroheim, who also had been around since 1915, was nominated for best supporting actor. He lost to George Sanders (All about Eve).
- For the first time, three acting awards were won for the same movie, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Old timers Vivien Leigh won best actress, Karl Malden best supporting actor, and Kim Hunter best supporting actress. Newcomer Marlon Brando was nominated for best actor but lost out to veteran Humphrey Bogart who won his first, and only, Oscar for The African Queen.
- Ingrid Bergman had begun an adulterous affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini in the late 1940s that resulted in a scandal leaving her unwelcome in the U.S. After being exiled from Hollywood for seven years, Bergman culminated a successful return by winning her second best actress award for Anastasia (1956).
- Sidney Poitier, a 15 year acting vet, became the first African-American actor to win best actor for his role as Homer Smith in Lilies of the Field (1963). It would not happen again until 2001 when Denzel Washington took home an Oscar for his performance in Training Day.
- In 1964, veteran Peter Sellers was nominated as best actor for playing three separate roles in Dr. Strangelove: the title character, President Muffley, and Captain Lionel Moondrake. This was an Academy first. Sellers lost to another veteran, Rex Harrison, in My Fair Lady.
- The first actual Oscar tie in acting awards occurred in 1968 when veteran Katherine Hepburn (A Lion in Winter) and newcomer Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl) finished in a dead heat for best actress.
- In 1969, John Wayne won his only Oscar for True Grit. Many film historians and critics today believe that Wayne was given this award more as recognition for his total body of work rather than his performance in this movie.
Newcomers
- When Shirley Booth won the Oscar for her work in Come Back, Little Sheba (1952), she became the first woman to win best actress for her first film role. (She had won a Tony for the same role on Broadway two years before.)
- Newcomer Marlon Brando capped off his record-setting four consecutive best actor nominations by winning the Oscar for his performance in On the Waterfront (1954). The record was later tied by Al Pacino (1972-75).
- Relative newcomer Thelma Ritter was not as fortunate. Between 1950 and 1962, she was nominated six times for best supporting actress but never won. Her Oscar record still stands, although she did win a Tony and several Laurel Awards.
- Although not a newcomer to films at the time, Sophia Loren was a newcomer to Hollywood when she became the first to win a best actress Oscar based upon work in a foreign language film. She won the award for the 1960 Italian movie, Two Women.[The first man to win best actor for work in a foreign language film was Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful (1999).]
For more on Oscar history see: Osborne, Robert, 75 Years of the Oscar. New York: Abbeville Press, 2003; The Official Academy Award Site; Oscar, Oscar
Related articles: Oscar Best Pictures - 1950s/1960s, Oscars for Direction - 1950s/1960s
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