OSCAR FACTS:

Q) Which films have won the most academy awards?

A) It was a three-way draw between Ben Hur, Titanic and Lord of Rings: Return of the King at 11 each.

Q) Which films have the most Oscar nominations?

A) All About Eve and Titanic are tied for the most nominations, with 14 each.

Q) What was the longest film to ever win the Best Picture Oscar?

A) Gone With the Wind at 3 hours and 56 minutes.

Q) Which was the shortest Best Picture winner?

A) Marty at 90 minutes.

Q) Which sequels have won Best Picture?

A) The Godfather Part 2, and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

Q) Which movies won best picture but were not nominated for Best Director?

A) Wings (1928), Grand Hotel (1931), Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and Argo (2012)

Q) What was the first fantasy film to ever win Best Picture?

A) Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in 2003

Q) What was the first animated film nominated for Best Picture?

A) Beauty and the Beast in 1991.

Q) What was the only X-Rated film to win Best Picture?

A) Midnight Cowboy in 1969.

Q) Who has won the most awards ever?

A) Walt Disney won the most with 26 wins, 4 of which were honorary. (Visual effects expert Dennis Muren is 2nd with 9 wins.)

Q) Who has the most nominations for any single person?

A) Walt Disney with 59 nominations. (John Williams is second with 49.)

Q) Who had the most consecutive nominations?

A) Walt Disney was nominated for 22 years in a row (1941-1962)

Q) Who had the most Oscar wins in one year?

A) Walt Disney with 4 wins in 1954.

Q) Which woman had the most ever Oscar nominations?

A) Costume designer Edith Head with 35 nominations. (She won 8 times.)

Q) Who had the most Best Director Oscars wins?

A) John Ford with 4 wins.

Q) Who had the most nominations for Best Director?

A) William Wyler with 12 nominations.

Q) Which Actress had the most Oscar wins?

A) Katherine Hepburn with 4 wins.

Q) Who had the most wins for a Male Actor?

A) Walter Brennan and Jack Nicholson have three Oscars each.

Q) Which performer (actor/actress) has the most Oscar nominations?

A) Meryl Streep has the most nominations of any performer at 17. (She’s won three times.)

Q) Who was the youngest person to ever win an Oscar?

A) Tatum O’Neal won for Paper Moon (1974) at age 10; although Shirley Temple won an honorary academy award at age 5, in 1934. (The first child to ever be nominated was Jackie Cooper for Skippy at age 9, in 1931)

Q) Who is the oldest male actor to ever win an Oscar?

A) Christopher Plummer won for the Beginners in (2012) at age 82.

Q) Who is the oldest actress to ever win an Oscar?

A) Jessica Tandy won for Driving Miss Daisy in 1989, at age 81. (The oldest nominee was Gloria Stuart at age 87 for Titanic in 1997.)

Q) Who was the first black person to win an Oscar?

A) Hattie McDaniel won in 1939 for Gone with the Wind.

Q) Who was the first black man to win an acting Oscar?

A) Sidney Poitier in 1963 for Lilies of the Field.

Q) Who was the first actress to ever win two Oscars?

A) Luise Rainer–and she was also the first to ever win two Oscars back-to-back; for The Great Ziegfeld in 1936 and the Good Earth in 1937. (She also had the longest life-span for any Oscar winner, passing away at age 104)

Q) Who was the first director to ever win two Best Director awards in a row?

A) John Ford for the Grapes of Wrath in 1940 and How Green was my Valley in 1941.

Q) Who was the oldest person to win Best Director?

A) Clint Eastwood at 74

Q) Who was the first woman to ever win the Best Director Oscar?

A) Katherine Bigelow won in 2009 for the Hurt Locker.

Q) Who was the first woman nominated for Best Director?

A) Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties (1976)

Q) Who was the first Asian actor nominated for an acting award?

A) Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa for The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1957.

Q) Who was the first Asian to ever win the Best Director Oscar?

A) Ang Lee won for Brokeback Mountain in 2005

Q) Who was the first Middle-Eastern actor to ever get an Oscar nomination?

A) Egyptian actor Omar Sharif was first for Lawrence of Arabia in 1962.

Q) Who got the first ever posthumous acting award win?

A) Peter Finch won for Network in 1976. He passed away before the film was released.

Q) When was the first academy award for Best Make-Up Effects given?

A) 1982.

Q) Who won the first ever Best Make-Up Effects awards?

A) Rick Baker won for American Werewolf in London.

Q) Who was the tallest Oscar nominee ever?

A) James Cromwell at 6 foot 6 inches was nominated for Babe in 1995.

Q) Who was the tallest Oscar winner?

A) Tim Robbins at 6’5, who won Best Supporting Actor for Mystic River.

Q) Who is the only Hispanic person to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy and a Tony?

A) Rita Moreno.

Oscar Trivia:

* The first Oscar ceremony was in 1928.

* Supporting actors and actresses were originally only given plaques instead of statues.

* The Oscars were first televised on NBC in 1953.

* Bob Hope hosted the Oscars the most; a total of 17 times.

* It wasn’t until 1940 that the Oscar winners were kept secret. Until then, people knew who won before hand.

*There were two film trilogies where all three films were nominated for best picture…The Godfather trilogy and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

* After Ben Hur won for Best Picture in 1959, the Motion Picture Academy encouraged theaters showing the film not to sell sodas, popcorn or candies with the film, because it was “too important!”

* The Oscars were originally a banquet until 1943, when they became more formal and ceremonial.

* The longest ever acceptance speech was by Greer Garson in 1942. It was six minutes long.

* Martha Raye was the first person to win the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

* In 1974, presenter David Niven was interrupted when a stripper ran across the stage.

* The longest Oscar ceremony was in 2006, hosted by Whoopie Goldberg. It ran four & a half hour.

* Grand Hotel was the only Best Picture winner not to be nominated for any other awards at all.

* Silence of the Lambs was the first film to be released on video before winning the Best Picture award.

* Two Silent films have won Best Picture: Wings (1928) and the Artist (2012).

*Lord of the Rings: Return of the King had 11 nominations and won every single category.

*The Color Purple had the most nominations (11) without a single win in any category.

* No one is sure where the name “Oscar” originally came from.