Question: How many Academy Awards did Walter Brennan win before the year that he starred in The North Star?

Context articles: This Woman is Mine
North Star Camp
The North Star (1943 film)
Walter Brennan
List of Fist of the North Star video games
The Westerner (film)
Consolidated Film Industries
North Star School District
The Tycoon (TV series)
Academy Honorary Award

This Woman is Mine is a 1941 American adventure film directed by Frank Lloyd starring Franchot Tone, John Carroll and Walter Brennan.
 that was nominated at the 14th Academy Awards for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture, the nomination was for Richard Hageman.
North Star Camp for Boys is a 120-acre traditional American summer camp located just outside Hayward, Wisconsin.
 North Star was founded in 1945 by Lou and Renee Rosenblum.
 The camp was owned and operated by Robert and Sue Lebby, from 1972 through 2011.
 Robert served as President of the Association of Independent Camps and has also served on the National Board of the American Camp Association.
 Robert sold the camp to former camper, counselor and village director, Andy Shlensky and his wife, Vickie, after the summer of 2011.
 Vickie later died in September 2016.
 The campers at North Star are boys aged 8–15 who come from all over the country (including Chicago, Texas, Nashville, Cleveland, Columbus, St. Louis, New York City, Michigan, Georgia, Colorado, California, Florida, Kansas City, Omaha, and many more).
 North Star Camp for Boys is a member of the American Camp Association.
The North Star (also known as Armored Attack in the US) is a 1943 war film produced by Samuel Goldwyn Productions and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures.
 It was directed by Lewis Milestone, written by Lillian Hellman and featured production design by William Cameron Menzies.
 The film starred Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan and Erich von Stroheim.
 The music was written by Aaron Copland, the lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and the cinematography was by James Wong Howe.
 The film also marked the debut of Farley Granger.
Walter Andrew Brennan (July 25, 1894 – September 21, 1974) was an American actor.
 He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1936, 1938, and 1940, making him one of only three male actors to win three Academy Awards.
The following is a list of video games based on the manga "Fist of the North Star".
 Since 1986 , many video games based on the "Hokuto no Ken" franchise have been released for the Japanese market, including coin-operated arcade games and computer software.
 The majority of these games were released only in Japan, with the exceptions of "Fist of the North Star" for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Taxan Soft in 1989 , "Fist of the North Star: 10 Big Brawls for the King of Universe" for the Game Boy by Electro Brain in 1991 , and the "" series by Koei Tecmo, which started in 2010 .
 The arcade games "Fighting Mania" by Konami and the "Fist of the North Star" fighting game by Sega, also received international distribution.
 Additionally, the Sega games "Black Belt" for the Master System and "Last Battle" for the Genesis, were originally released as "Hokuto no Ken" video games in Japan before they were stripped of the license and rebranded for the international market.
The Westerner is a 1940 American film directed by William Wyler and starring Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, and Doris Davenport.
 Written by Niven Busch, Stuart N. Lake, and Jo Swerling, the film is about a self-appointed hanging judge in Vinegaroon, Texas who befriends a saddle tramp who opposes the judge's policy against homesteaders.
 The film is often remembered for one of Walter Brennan's best performances, as Judge Roy Bean, which led to his winning his record-setting third Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
 James Basevi and Stuart N. Lake also received Academy Award nominations for Best Art Direction, Black and White and Best Story respectively.
Consolidated Film Industries was a film laboratory and film processing company and was one of the leading film laboratories in the Los Angeles area for many decades.
 CFI processed negatives and made prints for motion pictures and television.
 The company or its employees received many Academy Awards for scientific or technical achievements.
The North Star School District in Boswell, Somerset County, Pennsylvania in the United States was formed in 1969 with the merger of predecssors Jenner-Boswell and Forbes school districts.
 The district includes the boroughs of Boswell, Stoystown, Jennerstown, and Hooversville and the townships Jenner and Quemahoning in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
 The name North Star is taken from U.S. Route 219, the North Star Way, which runs through the District.
 That name for the highway has since fallen out of favor.
 The district encompasses approximately 102 square miles.
 According to 2000 federal census data, it serves a resident population of 9,519.
 According to District officials, in school year 2007-08 the NSSD provided basic educational services to 1,261 pupils through the employment of 114 teachers, 69 full-time and part-time support personnel, and 10 administrators.
The Tycoon is a 32-episode American sitcom television series broadcast by ABC.
 It starred Walter Brennan as the fictitious businessman Walter Andrews, similar to his birth name of Walter Andrew Brennan.
 As chairman of the board of the Thunder Corporation that he founded but no longer actively runs, Brennan plays an eccentric and cantankerous millionaire (when such persons were much fewer in number) with a common touch who helps promising persons in need.
 The series aired with new episodes at 9 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday from September 15, 1964, until April 27, 1965.
 It continued in reruns until September 7, 1965.
 The program did not develop sufficient audience, presumably because viewers may have preferred the versatile Brennan as the bucolic Grandpa Amos McCoy in his 1957-1963 ABC and CBS sitcom "The Real McCoys".
 Oddly, "The Tycoon" has the same name as an episode of "The Real McCoys" also called "The Tycoon," which aired four years earlier on August 23, 1960.
The Academy Honorary Award – instituted in 1948 for the 21st Academy Awards (previously called the Special Award, which was first presented in early 1929) – is given annually by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to celebrate motion picture achievements that are not covered by existing Academy Awards, although prior winners of competitive Academy Awards are not excluded from receiving the Honorary Award.
 Unless otherwise specified, Honorary Award recipients receive the same gold Oscar statuettes received by winners of the competitive Academy Awards.
 Unlike the Special Achievement Award instituted in 1972 (and discontinued in 1995), those on whom the Academy confers its Honorary Award do not have to meet "the Academy's eligibility year and deadline requirements."
 Like the Special Achievement Award, the Special Award and Honorary Award have been used to reward significant achievements of the year that did not fit in existing categories, subsequently leading the Academy to establish several new categories, and to honor exceptional career achievements, contributions to the motion picture industry, and service to the Academy.
 The Academy Honorary Award is often awarded in preference to those with noted achievements in motion pictures who have nevertheless never won an Academy Award.
 Thus, many of its recipients are Classic Hollywood stars, such as Lillian Gish, Barbara Stanwyck, Kirk Douglas, and Lauren Bacall.