25 Things You Never Knew About the Oscars
It's almost here! The 91st Academy Awards finally airs this Sunday, February 24th, and we're counting down the minutes.
We've already given you some fascinating Oscars stats, and now we're bringing you some of the best (and, um, craziest) facts about Hollywood's biggest awards show. From the first Best Actor winner, to the "one dollar" Oscar rule, here are 25 things you (probably) don't know about the Oscars.
1. The youngest Oscar winner was Tatum O'Neal (above), who won Best Supporting Actress for "Paper Moon" (1973) when she was only 10 years old. Shirley Temple won the short-lived Juvenile Award at just 6 years old.
2. After winning Best Actress for "Cabaret" (1972), Liza Minnelli became (and still is) the only Oscar winner whose parents both earned Oscars. Her mother, Judy Garland, received an honorary award in 1939 and her father, Vincente Minnelli, won Best Director for "Gigi" (1958).
3. Nameplates for all potential winners (meaning, every nominee) are prepared ahead of time; in 2014, the Academy made 215 of them!
4. The first Academy Awards were presented in 1929 at a private dinner of about 270 people. It was first televised in 1953, and now the Oscars ceremony can be seen in more than 200 countries.
5. Only five women have received Best Director nominations -- Lina Wertmüller (1977), Jane Campion (1994), Sofia Coppola (2004), Kathryn Bigelow (2010) and Greta Gerwig (2018) -- while Bigelow is the lone winner for "The Hurt Locker" (2009). Interestingly, Bigelow beat out ex-husband James Cameron, who was nominated for the technological wonder "Avatar."
6. At 82, Christopher Plummer (above) is the oldest person to win an Academy Award. He received the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work in "Beginners" (2010), opposite Ewan McGregor.
7. Peter Finch ("Network") and Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight") are the only actors to be awarded an Academy Award posthumously. Ledger's Oscar -- and his entire fortune -- was gifted to his young daughter, Matilda.
8. With her nomination for "The Post," Meryl Streep has been nominated a record 21 times. She won Best Supporting Actress for "Kramer vs. Kramer" (1979), and has two Best Actress Oscars, one for "Sophie's Choice" (1982) and one for "The Iron Lady" (2011).
9. Katharine Hepburn won a record four Academy Awards -- all Best Actress Oscars -- the last for "On Golden Pond" (1981), which starred another Hollywood legend, Henry Fonda.
10. The first Oscars were held at the famous Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Today, the ceremony takes place at the Dolby Theatre (around the corner from the Roosevelt), its tenth venue.11. Jack Nicholson (above) is the most-nominated male actor, receiving 12 Oscar nominations beginning with 1969's "Easy Rider." His three wins tie him with Walter Brennan and Daniel Day-Lewis.
12. Oscar statuettes are technically property of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. As a result, before an Academy Award winner or his/her estate can sell an Oscar, they must first offer to sell it back to the Academy for one dollar (yes, one dollar). This, of course, is to discourage winners from selling the award for financial gain. Oscars awarded before 1950, however, are not bound by this agreement. In 2011, Orson Welles's 1941 Oscar for "Citizen Kane" was sold at auction for over $800,000.
13. Only three films have won all of the "Big Five" Academy Award categories: "It Happened One Night" (1934), "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975), and "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991). The "Big Five" categories are: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay (either adapted or original).
14. In 1940, the LA Times broke the Academy's embargo and published the names of all the Oscar winners prior to the ceremony. As a result, the Academy introduced the sealed envelope tradition that's still used today.
15. The legendary Alfred Hitchcock was nominated five times for Best Director, but never took home the Oscar. In 1968, though, he took home the Irving J. Thalberg memorial award. His acceptance speech consisted of two words: "Thank you." 16. "Ben-Hur" (1959), "Titanic" (1997), and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003) (above) are the most successful films in Oscar history, each winning a whopping 11 Oscars. "Return of the King" is the only one to win every award for which it was nominated.
17. Composer John Williams is the most-nominated living person, having earned 50 Oscar nominations throughout his storied career, beginning with 1967's "Valley of the Dolls."
18. The longest Oscar acceptance speech ever delivered was five and half minutes, and it was given by 1943 Best Actress winner Greer Garson, who won for "Mrs. Miniver."
19. Oscar statuettes were made from painter plaster during World War II due to metal shortages. After the war ended, these Oscars were replaced with traditional statues.
20. Bob Hope hosted the ceremony a whopping 19 times, the most of any host in Oscars history.21. With his Best Actor nomination for "American Sniper" (2014), Bradley Cooper (above) has been nominated for an acting Oscar three years in a row. That's one shy of the record for most consecutive acting nods, held by the late Marlon Brando.
22. The first Best Actor awards were given to Emil Jannings for "The Last Command" and "The Way of All Flesh" (yes, both!).
23. At the 29th Academy Awards ceremony held in 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category was introduced. Previously, the best foreign language film was acknowledged with a Special Achievement Award.
24. In 1999, Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench were both nominated for playing Queen Elizabeth in "Elizabeth" and "Shakespeare in Love." Dench won Best Supporting Actress, despite only appearing in the film for a total of eight minutes. Meanwhile, Blanchett lost the Best Actress Oscar to Gwyneth Paltrow -- also for "Shakespeare in Love."
25. "O.J.: Made in America," nominated this year for Best Documentary Feature, has a running time of 7 hours and 47 minutes, making it the longest film ever to nab an Oscar nom.
