Academy Awards Best Actor The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) ); two were consecutive nominations (from 1930/31-1931/32) Tom Hanks (5) - with two wins (Philadelphia (1993), Forrest Gump (1994)); two were consecutive nominations (from 1993-1994) Sean Penn (5) - with two wins (Mystic River (2003) and Milk (2008)); nominations were from 1995-2008 The Most Best Actor Nominations: Actors with the highest number of Best Actor acting nominations (in parentheses) include: Spencer Tracy (9) - with two wins Laurence Olivier (9) - with one win (Hamlet (1948)); two were consecutive nominations (from 1939-1940) Jack Nicholson (8) - with two wins Paul Newman (8) - with one win (The Color of Money (1986)); two were consecutive nominations (from 1981-1982) Peter O'Toole (8) - with no wins; two

 were consecutive nominations (from 1968-1969); nominations from 1962-2006 Marlon Brando (7) - with two wins Dustin Hoffman (7) - with two wins Jack Lemmon (7) - with one win (Save the Tiger (1973)); two were consecutive nominations (from 1959-1960, and from 1979-1980) Paul Muni (6) - with one win (The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)); three were consecutive nominations (from 1935-1937) Richard Burton (6) - with no wins; three were consecutive nominations (from 1964-1966) Gary Cooper (5) - with two wins Tom Hanks (5) - with two wins Fredric March (5) - with two wins Sean Penn (5) - with two wins Daniel Day-Lewis (5) - with three wins James Stewart (5) - with one win ( Anthony Hopkins (3) - with one win ( The Silence of the Lambs (1991) ); nominations from 1991-1

995 Russell Crowe (3) - with one win (Gladiator (2000)); three were consecutive nominations (from 1999-2001) Jeff Bridges (3) - with one win (Crazy Heart (2009)); nominations from 1984-2010 George Clooney (3) - with no wins; nominations from 2007-2011 Consecutive Best Actor-Winning Performers: There are only two actresses (Luise Rainer and Katharine Hepburn) who have received two consecutive Best Actress awards, as there are only two actors who have received two consecutive Best Actor statuette wins: Spencer Tracy (Captains Courageous (1937) and Boys Town (1938)) Tom Hanks (Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994)) [Note: Jason Robards won two consecutive Best Supporting Actor Oscars in 1976 and 1977.] Winners of Both a Lead and Supporting Actor Oscar: In 1997, Jack Nicholson tied Walter Brennan for the most wins (3) for a male performer (Brennan has three Best Supporting Actor

 trophies, Nicholson has two for Best Actor and one for Best Supporting Actor).

The only stars to win both a Best Actor and a Best Supporting Actor (BSA) Oscar are the following: Jack Nicholson (BA for Gene Hackman (BA for The French Connection (1971) , BSA for Unforgiven (1992) ) Kevin Spacey (BA for American Beauty (1999), BSA for The Usual Suspects (1995)) Denzel Washington (BA for Training Day (2001), BSA for Glory (1989)) The Only Best Actor Tie: In the Best Actor category, an unusual tie (the only occurrence among male acting performances) occurred in 1931/32 between Wallace Beery and Fredric March, for their respective performances in The Champ (1931/32) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931/32). The Most Best Actor Oscar Nominations - Without Winning: Peter O'Toole is the only star with eight Best Actor Oscar nominations without a single win. His record extends 44 years, from 1962 to 2006.

Richard Burton was nominated seven times (and never won), although his first nomination was as Best Supporting Actor for My Cousin Rachel (1952) -- his last six nominations were as Best Actor. Oscar-Winning Actor Roles and Trends: Biographies of remarkable, real-life individuals (military figures or soldiers, law-and-order enforcers, historical figures) and portrayals of the mentally ill are heavily represented among male Oscar winners, particularly in the acting awards. It helps an actor's chances of winning an Oscar if the character dies a tragic death during the movie, or is slightly eccentric (or genius). Physical and Mental Disabilities or Diseases An overwhelming number of actors have won (or been nominated for) the top acting (and supporting) awards for portraying characters with physical or mental disabilities (personality disorders, amnesia) or diseases (with handicaps, such as blindness or muteness, tics, etc.): Fredric March won the Best Actor Oscar for his dual, split personality role as a respected doctor and as a fiendish mad-man in Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde (1931/32) Ronald Colman was nominated as Best Actor for his role as shell-shocked amnesiac Charles Rainier in Random Harvest (1942) Harold Russell (real-life amputee) won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as courageous and resourceful returning sailor Homer Parrish in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) [Note: Russell is the only performer to win two Oscars for the same performance.

In 1946, he won Best Supporting Actor and was voted an Honorary Oscar that same year for his performance.] Arthur Kennedy was nominated as Best Actor for his role as veteran Larry Nevins made blind in WWII combat in Bright Victory (1951) Cliff Robertson won the Best Actor Oscar for his title role as Charly Gordon - a mentally-retarded, thirty year-old bakery worker temporarily made a genius through surgery in Charly (1968) Alan Arkin was nominated as Best Actor for his role as deaf-mute Singer in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968) Sir John Mills won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as mute, gentle, mis-shaped village idiot Michael in Ryan's Daughter (1970) - he became the sole male actor to win an Oscar for a non-speaking role Jack Nicholson won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as life-affirming, ill-fated, free-spirited, anarchic misfit patient Randle Patrick McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) Jon Voight won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as handicapped Luke Martin - a bitter but sensitive paraplegic veteran paralyzed during the Vietnam

 War in Coming Home (1978) Timothy Hutton won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as guilt-ridden, depressed teenaged Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People (1980) John Malkovich was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for his role as blind boarder Mr.

Will in Places in the Heart (1984) Dustin Hoffman won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as institutionalized, ultimately loveable, autistic idiot savant Raymond ('Ray(n)' 'Man(d)') Babbitt in Rain Man (1988) Daniel Day-Lewis won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as Irish-born artist and author Christy Brown - a self-reliant, spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy victim who could only write and draw with his foot in My Left Foot (1989) Anthony Hopkins won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as cannibalistic, menacing, psychopathic serial psychiatrist/killer Dr. Hannibal "Cannibal" Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Al Pacino won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as foul-mouthed, suicidal, blind (as a result of a boozing-related accident), retired Lt. Col.

Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman (1992) Tom Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as AIDS-infected corporate attorney and victim Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia (1993) - Hanks' 1994 acceptance speech for his Best Actor Oscar win for Philadelphia (1993) directly inspired the homosexuality-themed film In & Out (1997), about an outed English literature teacher (Kevin Kline) in an Indiana town when one of his former students (Matt Dillon) thanked him at the Academy Awards and mentioned he was gay Tom Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar again for his title role as Forrest Gump, a good-hearted, naive, eccentric, dim-witted protagonist (an idiot-savant) in Forrest Gump (1994) Geoffrey Rush won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as talented but agonizingly-troubled, mentally-disabled Australian concert pianist David Helfgott who suffered a crippling nervous breakdown in Shine (1996) Jack Nicholson won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as rich, bigoted, obsessive-compulsive romance novelist Melvin Udall living in New York in As Good As It Gets (1997) Geoffrey

 Rush was also nominated as Best Actor for his role as sexually-crazed French novelist Marquis de Sade in Quills (2000) Jamie Foxx won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as legendary blues singer and blind pianist Ray Charles in Ray (2004) Forest Whitaker won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as brutal, infamous, genocidal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland (2006) Colin Firth won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as stuttering monarch George VI in The King's Speech (2010) Eddie Redmayne won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as ALS-diagnosed physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (2014) Alcoholics And a number of other actors have won Oscar awards (or been nominated) for portraying alcoholic characters: Lionel Barrymore won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as dissolute and drunken lawyer Stephen Ashe (co-star Norma Shearer's father) in A Free Soul (1930/31) Van Heflin won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Shakespeare-quoting, alcoholic confidant Jeff Hartnett who befriended gangster co-star Robert

 Taylor in Johnny Eager (1942) Ray Milland won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as whiskey-soaked, boozing, writer's blocked Don Birnam in The Lost Weekend (1945) Fredric March won Best Actor for his role as anguished, middle-aged, alcoholic banking executive - and returning war veteran and ex-sergeant Al Stephenson in A Star Is Born (1954) Jack Lemmon was nominated as Best Actor for his role as alcoholic advertising man Joe Clay in Days of Wine and Roses (1962) Lee Marvin won the Best Actor Oscar for his dual role as cold-eyed, ruthlessly evil desperado Tim Strawn (with an artificial silver nose) and Strawn's aging, once-famous, drunken and whiskey-soaked twin gunman Kid Shelleen in Cat Ballou (1965) Dudley Moore was nominated as Best Actor for his role as drunk, spoiled, amiable and millionaire-rich playboy - title character Arthur Bach in Arthur (1981) Paul Newman was nominated as Best Actor for his role as alcoholic, ambulance-chasing, Boston trial lawyer Frank P.

Galvin in The Verdict (1982) Robert Duvall won Best Actor for his role as ex-drinking, ex-country/western music star Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies (1983) Note: in 1983, all five Best Actor nominees played drunks of one sort or another (two were nominated for the film The Dresser (1983), Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay) Albert Finney was nominated as Best Actor for his role as self-destructive alcoholic Geoffrey Firmin drinking himself to death in the shadow of a Mexican volcano in Under the Volcano (1984) Nicolas Cage won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as failed, Hollywood scriptwriter and fatally-destructive, genial, but suicidal alcoholic Ben Sanderson in Leaving Las Vegas (1995) Robert Duvall was nominated as Best Actor for his role as Texas Pentecostal preacher Eulis ("Sonny") Dewey who became 'The Apostle' of God in Louisiana to escape his past in The Apostle (1997) James Coburn won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Nick Nolte's tyrannical, abusive and alcoholic father Glen "Pop" White

house in Affliction (1998) Jeff Bridges won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as broken-down, aging, boozy country-music singer Bad Blake in Crazy Heart (2009) Denzel Washington was nominated as Best Actor for his role as tragic, heroic, and addicted boozy airline pilot Whip Whitaker in Flight (2012) Homosexual Roles Some straight actors have been nominated (and often won) for homosexual roles: Peter Finch received his first Best Actor nomination (without winning) for his role as middle-aged, homosexual Jewish Dr.

Daniel Hirsh involved in a three-sided love story in Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971) William Hurt won Best Actor for his role as imprisoned, flamboyant gay South American Luis Molina in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) Tom Hanks won Best Actor for his role as dying AIDS patient Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia (1993) Sean Penn won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as openly pioneering San Francisco gay camera store owner Harvey Milk who successfully was serving in public office as mayoral aide when he was assassinated, in Milk (2008) Mediocre or Compensatory Oscar Wins: Oscar victories for Best Actor haven't always been for the stars' best work either, but have often been an effort to right past injustices, or retroactively for an entire body of work: 56 year-old Ronald Colman's late win as Best Actor for A Double Life (1947) - a tribute to his entire silent and sound film career 62 year-old John Wayne's belated win as Best Actor for True Grit (1969), when he should have been honored years earlier for The Grapes of Wrath (1940) or The Ox-Bow Incident

 (1943) Also, elderly nominees seem to fare better, such as 54 year-old Art Carney winning the Best Actor Oscar for Harry and Tonto (1974), 60 year-old Peter Finch's posthumous Best Actor award for Network (1976) , 80 year-old George Burns winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Sunshine Boys (1975), Melvyn Douglas winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Being There (1979), Don Ameche winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Cocoon (1985), and 72 year-old Alan Arkin winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine (2006).

Many other elderly actors have been nominated for supporting roles, including Eric von Stroheim for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) , John Mills for Ryan's Daughter (1970), Lee Strasberg for The Godfather, Part II (1974) , Burgess Meredith for Rocky (1976) , Robert Preston for Victor/Victoria (1982), Denholm Elliott for A Room With a View (1986), and Armin Mueller-Stahl for Shine (1996). Post-Humous Acting Nominations and Award(s): There are only been seven post-humous performance nominees in Academy history.

Only two posthumous nominees have won the Oscar: the first by Peter Finch and and the second by Heath Ledger - see below: Jeanne Eagels - unofficially nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for The Letter (1928/29) posthumously (Academy records indicated that she was "under consideration" for an award) James Dean - the only actor who was twice nominated (in two consecutive years) for a Best Actor Oscar after his death and lost, for East of Eden (1955) , and Giant (1956) Spencer Tracy - nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) posthumously Peter Finch - nominated and winning the Best Actor Oscar for Network (1976) posthumously - Finch was the first performer to have won the Oscar after his death Ralph Richardson - nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) posthumously Italian actor Massimo Troisi - nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for The Postman (Il Postino) (1995) posthumously Heath Ledger - nominated and winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for

 The Dark Knight (2008) posthumously - the second performer to win posthumously The Most Best Actor Nominations for a Single Film: The film with the most Best Actor nominations (3) was Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) , for Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, and Charles Laughton.

It was the first film to have three acting nominations, and the first film to have three co-performers competing against each other in the same category - as Best Actor. African-American (or Black) Notables: There have only been twenty African-American (or black) nominations for Best Actor, divided amongst thirteen different performers. Four actors (Poitier, Freeman, Washington and Smith) have been nominated twice (or more) for the top award. Some regard Denzel Washington as the first African-American performer to win Best Actor -- because previous Oscar-winner Sidney Poitier was of Bahamas descent: # Chiwetel Ejiofor 12 Years a Slave (2013) In total, there have only been 23 different African-American (or black) performers nominated for the top award (either Best Actor or Best Actress). Only fourteen awards have been won by African-Americans (or blacks) in both lead and supporting categories (four Best Actor, one Best Actress, four Best Supporting Actor, and five Best Supporting Actress). Only five black performers have won the Oscar in the lead category (four Best Actor, one Best Actress).

Only four African-American actors have won the Best Actor Oscar: Sidney Poitier for Lilies of the Field (1963) Denzel Washington for Training Day (2001) Jamie Foxx for Ray (2004) Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland (2006) Five of the 20 acting nominations in 2004 and 2006 were African-American nominees. This bested the record of three nominated blacks that occurred in three different years (2001, 1985, and 1972): 2006 2001: Halle Berry for Monster's Ball, Denzel Washington for Training Day, and Will Smith for Ali 1985: Whoopi Goldberg, Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey for The Color Purple 1972: Diana Ross for Lady Sings the Blues, and Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield for Sounder Jamie Foxx also set a record for being the first black to debut as a nominee in two categories in the same year, lead and supporting, for Ray (2004) and Collateral (2004).

Denzel Washington is the only black actor nominated six times for Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor. With his nomination for Flight (2012), he became the most nominated African-American actor in Academy history. He is the only black actor to have won two competitive Oscars (as Best Supporting Actor for Glory (1989) and as Best Actor for Training Day (2001)). Two African-American actors have been nominated for Best Actor in the same year, numerous times: Year Don Cheadle for Hotel Rwanda (2004), Jamie Foxx for Ray (2004) 2001 Will Smith for Ali (2001), Denzel Washington for Training Day (2001) Morgan Freeman's Best Supporting Actor win for Million Dollar Baby (2004), paired with Jamie Foxx's Best Actor win for Ray (2004), was the first time that African-American actors won in their respective categories in the same year.

In three instances, African-Americans have won two of the four acting prizes: 2006: Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland, Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls 2004: Morgan Freeman for Million Dollar Baby, Jamie Foxx for Ray 2001: Halle Berry for Monster's Ball, Denzel Washington for Training Day Latino, Asian and Other Ethnic-Minority (Non-English) Performers: There have been only a few Best Actor Oscar wins by ethnic/other minority (or non-English) performers: French actor Jean Dujardin won Best Actor for The Artist (2011) - he was the first French actor to win the Best Actor Oscar Italian actor Roberto Benigni won the Best Actor Oscar for Life is Beautiful (1998) - he was the first male actor to win an Oscar for a foreign-language film (his Best Actor Oscar win was only the second time a nominee won an acting Oscar for a foreign language film role - the earlier winner was Sophia Loren) Ben Kingsley, with half-Indian (birth name Krishna Bhanji) and half-English descent, won the Best Actor Oscar for Gandhi (1982) - he became the first South Asian

 performer to achieve such a feat Puerto Rican-born Jose Ferrer won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) Notable ethnic/minority performance nominations for Best Actor include: Australian actor Hugh Jackman was nominated as Best Actor for Les Miserables (2012) Mexican-born actor Demián Bichir was nominated as Best Actor for A Better Life (2011) Ben Kingsley was nominated as Best Actor for House of Sand and Fog (2003) Spanish/Latino actor Javier Bardem was nominated as Best Actor for Before Night Falls (2000) and for Biutiful (2010) - he was the first Best Actor nominee for a fully Spanish-language role Australian actor Geoffrey Rush was nominated as Best Actor for Shine (1996) (win) and Quills (2000) - Geoffrey Rush became the first Australian actor to win Best Actor (for the role of the mad pianist in Shine (1996)) since Peter Finch won posthumously for Network (1976) Italian actor Massimo Troisi was nominated as Best Actor for The Postman (Il Postino) (1995

) French actor Gerard Depardieu was nominated as Best Actor for Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) Swedish actor Max Von Sydow was nominated as Best Actor for Pelle the Conqueror (1988) Mexican-American Edward James Olmos was nominated as Best Actor for Stand and Deliver (1988) Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni was nominated as Best Actor for Dark Eyes (1987) Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni was nominated as Best Actor for A Special Day (1977) Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini was nominated as Best Actor for Seven Beauties (1976) Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni was nominated as Best Actor for Divorce - Italian Style (1962) Mexican-born Anthony Quinn was nominated twice as Best Actor for Wild Is the Wind (1957) and Zorba the Greek (1964) Puerto Rican-born Jose Ferrer was nominated as Best Actor for Moulin Rouge (1952) Note: In 1985, all ten of the Best Actor/Actress nominees were American-born - the first time in Oscar history.

Also, in 1964 and in 2007, all four winners of the performance/acting Oscars were non-Americans. Multiple Nominations for the Same Character -- The Most Oscar-Friendly Role: The character of Henry VIII has the most acting nominations (three) and is the most Oscar-friendly role: Charles Laughton as Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) - the only winner of the three - a Best Actor Oscar Robert Shaw as Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons (1966) - nominated as Best Supporting Actor Richard Burton as Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) - nominated as Best Actor Other historical or fictional characters with two acting nominations include: Norman Maine, Mr. Arthur Chipping ("Mr. Chips"), Abraham Lincoln, Father Chuck O'Malley, King Henry V, Professor Henry Higgins, Cyrano de Bergerac, Joe Pendleton, President Richard Nixon, Vito Corleone. (See below).

Only two nominees in Oscar history have been nominated for playing the role of a real-life Oscar nominee: Cate Blanchett as Best Supporting Actress (win) for playing the role of Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator (2004), and Robert Downey, Jr. nominated as Best Actor for the title role of Oscar nominee Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin (1992). Multiple Nominations for the Same Character: Five actors have been nominated twice for playing the same character in two different films (wins are marked with an *): Bing Crosby as Father Charles "Chuck" O'Malley in Going My Way (1944)* and The Bells of St.

Mary's (1945) Paul Newman as 'Fast' Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986)* Peter O'Toole as King Henry II in Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968) Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa in Rocky (1976) and Creed (2015) (*Crosby won Best Actor for his first role, and Newman won Best Actor for his second role.) Only one actress has ever received two nominations for playing the same character in two different films: Cate Blanchett became the fifth performer to draw mentions for the same role (Queen Elizabeth I) in two different films: Best Actress for Elizabeth (1998) and Best Actress for Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) Performers who were nominated as Best Actor for the same character in different films in different years include: Fredric March and James Mason as Norman Maine in A Star is Born (1937) and A Star is Born (1954) Robert Donat and Peter O'Toole as Mr.

Arthur Chipping ("Mr. Chips") in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh as King Henry V in Henry V (1944) and Henry V (1989) - both were directed by their stars Charles Laughton and Richard Burton as King Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) Leslie Howard and Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (1938) and My Fair Lady (1964) Jose Ferrer and Gerard Depardieu as Cyrano de Bergerac in Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) and Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) Robert Montgomery and Warren Beatty as Joe Pendleton in Here Comes Mr.

Jordan (1941) and Heaven Can Wait (1978) Anthony Hopkins and Frank Langella as President Richard Nixon in Nixon (1995) and Frost/Nixon (2008) John Wayne and Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969) and True Grit (2010) Raymond Massey and Daniel Day-Lewis as President Abraham Lincoln in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940) and Lincoln (2012) Robert De Niro won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Vito Corleone in The Godfather, Part II (1974) , the role for which Marlon Brando had previously won Best Actor in The Godfather (1972). Multiple Nominations: After 1929/30, an actor could not receive more than one nomination per category. In 1944, the rules permitted Barry Fitzgerald to be nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor (which he won) for the same performance - Father Fitzgibbon in Going My Way (1944).

Subsequently, new rules have prevented this from re-occurring, although an actor may still be nominated in both categories for two different roles. (See the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress pages for further information on double nominees.) Barry Fitzgerald is the only actor to be nominated for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for the same character (or performance) in the same year.

Since then, two other male performers have been double-nominated in a single year (wins are marked with *) - Pacino was the first actor to be nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor in two different roles; the second actor in Oscar history to do so was Jamie Foxx in 2004: Barry Fitzgerald (Best Actor for Going My Way (1944)* and Best Supporting Actor for Going My Way (1944)) Al Pacino (Best Actor for Scent of a Woman (1992)* and Best Supporting Actor for Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)) Jamie Foxx (Best Actor for Ray (2004)* and Best Supporting Actor for Collateral (2004)) One Nomination for Multiple Roles: Peter Sellers is the only actor to be nominated (as Best Actor) for playing three entirely-different roles in the same film, Three films have had the entire speaking casts nominated for awards: Sleuth (1972), with Best Actor nominations for Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier Give 'Em Hell, Harry! (1975), with a Best Actor nomination for James Whitmore Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(1966) , with various nominations for all four cast members, Elizabeth Taylor (Best Actress win), Richard Burton (Best Actor loss), George Segal (Best Supporting Actor loss), and Sandy Dennis (Best Supporting Actress win) Actors Who Won An Oscar for a Dual Role: Fredric March, Best Actor winner for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931/32): Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Laurence Olivier, Best Actor winner for Hamlet (1948, UK): Hamlet and the Voice of the Ghost (uncredited) Lee Marvin, Best Actor winner for Cat Ballou (1965): Tim Strawn and Kid Shelleen The Best Actor Award for Two Films in the Same Year: Emil Jannings was the only performer to win the Best Actor award for his performances in two films in the same year: The Last Command (1927/28) and The Way of All Flesh (1927/28) - he was the very first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor; the Switzerland-born actor was the first non-American to win the award, which was presented to him a month before the ceremony.

Winning Co-Stars: Best Actor and Best Actress in the Same Film: Seven films have won in both the leading actor and leading actress categories: Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in Gene Hackman, Best Actor ( The French Connection (1971) ), Best Supporting Actor ( Unforgiven (1992) ) Kevin Spacey, Best Supporting Actor (The Usual Suspects (1995)), Best Actor (American Beauty (1999)) Denzel Washington, Best Supporting Actor (Glory (1989)), Best Actor (Training Day (2001)) Films With the Most Oscars for Acting: (see also here ) The Only Films in Which Three Stars Won Performance Oscars A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) - 12 nominations total, 4 acting nominations, 3 acting wins: Vivien Leigh (Best Actress), Karl Malden (Best Supporting Actor), Kim Hunter (Best Supporting Actress) Network (1976) - 10 nominations total, 5 acting nominations, 3 acting wins: Peter Finch (Best Actor), Faye Dunaway (Best Actress), Beatrice Straight (Best Supporting Actress) Film Debut Nominees/Winners for

 Best Actor Oscars: Not a single actor has ever won the Best Actor Oscar for a feature film debut.

A few of those below had very small debuting roles before a substantial film appearance. Others have received nominations for Best Actor for their debut role (a sampling): Paul Muni in The Valiant (1928/29) (nomination) Lawrence Tibbett in The Rogue Song (1929-30) (nomination) Orson Welles in The Graduate (1967) (nomination) Ben Kingsley in Gandhi (1982) (win) (he had a bit role in his feature film debut, Fear is the Key (1972)) Geoffrey Rush in Shine (1997) (win) (he had a bit role in a few earlier films, including Hoodwink (1981)) Reprising an Acclaimed Stage Role: Six Best Actor winners won the Oscar for an acclaimed stage role that they reprised on the screen.

Those with an asterisk (*) won both a Best Actor Oscar and a Tony Award for musical roles they had created on stage: George Arliss for Disraeli (1929/30) Paul Lukas for Watch on the Rhine (1943) Jose Ferrer for Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) Paul Scofield in A Man For All Seasons (1966) Oscar-Winning Roles First on TV: The only two Best Actor winners who first played their Oscar-winning roles on TV were: Maximilian Schell for Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) [Note: Schell is the lowest-billed performer to win a Best Actor Academy Award. He received fifth billing - behind Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, and Marlene Dietrich.] Cliff Robertson for Charly (1968) Best Actors Refusing Their Oscar Trophy: George C.

Scott refused his Best Actor Oscar for Patton (1970) Marlon Brando refused his Best Actor Oscar for Note: Much earlier in 1935, Dudley Nichols (the Best Writing Oscar winner for The Informer (1935)) also boycotted the Oscars, thereby refusing his Academy Award Actors/Actresses With the Most Consecutive Acting Nominations (in both Leading and Supporting categories) (wins marked with *): Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Chicago (2002), Cold Mountain (2003)* Longest Time Period Between First and Last Nomination/Win: 48 years - Katharine Hepburn was first nominated and won Best Actress for Morning Glory (1932/33) and then 48 years later was nominated and won Best Actress for On Golden Pond (1981) - her fourth (and last) Oscar win! 46 years - Alan Arkin was nominated as Best Actor for The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming! (1966) and then two years later as Best Actor for The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968).

Then, there was a long gap - 38 years later, after which he won Best Supporting Actor for Little Miss Sunshine (2006). He topped that with another six year wait for another Best Supporting Actor nomination for Argo (2012). 41 years - Henry Fonda was first nominated in 1940 as Best Actor for The Grapes Of Wrath (1940) , and wasn't nominated again until 41 years later - when he won his sole Oscar (Best Actor) for On Golden Pond (1981) 40 years - Mickey Rooney was first nominated as Best Actor for Babes in Arms (1939), then as Best Actor for The Human Comedy (1943), then as Best Supporting Actor for The Bold and the Brave (1956), and then as Best Supporting Actor for The Black Stallion (1979), 40 years later, but he didn't ever win!

39 years - Sylvester Stallone was first nominated as Best Actor for Rocky (1976) , then again as Best Supporting Actor for Creed (2015) 39 years - Jack Palance was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for Sudden Fear (1952) and then as Best Supporting Actor for Shane (1953) - it was a time span of 39 years from his first nomination to his eventual victory as Best Supporting Actor for City Slickers (1991)!

38 years - Helen Hayes had to wait 38 years between her only Oscar nominations (both wins), Best Actress for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931/32), and Best Supporting Actress for Airport (1970) 37 years - Albert Finney was first nominated as Best Actor for Tom Jones (1963) and then received three more nominations for Best Actor: for Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Dresser (1983), and Under the Volcano (1984) -- 37 years after his first nomination, he received his fifth and final Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Erin Brockovich (2000) - he never won!

Longest Gap Between First Nomination and First Winning Film: 41 years - Henry Fonda was first nominated in 1940 as Best Actor for The Grapes Of Wrath (1940) , and didn't win an acting award (Best Actor) until 41 years later for On Golden Pond (1981), and these were his only two career acting nominations (Note: Fonda did receive a producing Best Picture nomination for 12 Angry Men (1957) ) 32 years - Geraldine Page was first nominated in 1953 as Best Supporting Actress for Hondo (1953), and won Best Actress for A Trip to Bountiful (1985), 32 years later; she was the only actress with seven unsuccessful nominations (in both categories) before finally winning Best Actress with nomination # 8 28 years - Paul Newman was first nominated in 1958 as Best Actor for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) , and won Best Actor for The Color of Money (1986), 28 years later; he was the only actor with six unsuccessful Best Actor nominations before finally winning Best Actor with nomination #

 7 - and he later added another nomination as Best Actor for Nobody's Fool (1994), and his first Best Supporting Actor nomination also came later for Road to Perdition (2002) 25 years - Shirley MacLaine was first nominated in 1958 as Best Actress for Some Came Running (1958), and won Best Actress for Terms of Endearment (1983) , 25 years later 20 years - Al Pacino was first nominated in 1972 as Best Supporting Actor for The Godfather (1972) , and won Best Actor for Scent of a Woman (1992), 20 years later 20 years - John Wayne was first nominated in 1949 as Best Actor for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), and won Best Actor for True Grit (1969), 20 years later 18 years - Ronald Colman was first nominated in 1929/30 as Best Actor for Bulldog Drummond (1929/30), and won Best Actor for A Double Life (1947), 18 years later

 17 years - Gregory Peck was first nominated in 1945 as Best Actor for The Keys of the Kingdom (1945), and won Best Actor for 12 years - Leonardo DiCaprio was first nominated in 1993 as Best Supporting Actor for What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), and won Best Actor for The Revenant (2015), 12 years later Shortest Best Actor Performance: Anthony Hopkins had the shortest screen time for his Best Actor Oscar win - as Hannibal "Cannibal" Lecter in Silence of the Lambs (1991) - supposedly 16 minutes of screen time Only Non-Human Best Actor-Nominated Performance: Jeff Bridges as the alien 'Starman' in Starman (1984) Directors Directing Themselves to a Best Actor Oscar or Nomination: There are only two actors/performers that have directed themselves to an Oscar-winning Best Actor Oscar: British actor Laurence Olivier as the title character in Hamlet (1948, UK) - Olivier became the first individual to win both an acting Oscar and Best Picture Oscar (as producer) - this time for the same film Italian actor Roberto Ben

igni as Guido in Life is Beautiful (1998, It.) Many actors have directed themselves to Best Actor Oscar nominations, most prominently: Charles Chaplin for The Great Dictator (1940) Woody Allen for Annie Hall (1977) Warren Beatty for Heaven Can Wait (1978) and Reds (1981) Kenneth Branagh for Henry V (1989) Billy Bob Thornton for Sling Blade (1996) Roberto Benigni for Life is Beautiful (1998) Ed Harris for Pollock (2000) Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby (2004) Michael Douglas became the second individual to win both an acting Oscar and Best Picture Oscar, this time for different films: Best Picture ( One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) ) and Best Actor (Wall Street (1987)).

Winning Performances Portraying Royalty: Yul Brynner, Best Actor as King Mongkut of Siam in The King and I (1956) Ingrid Bergman, Best Actress as Anastasia (possibly daughter of murdered Russian czar Nicholas II) in Anastasia (1956) Katharine Hepburn, Best Actress as Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter (1968) Helen Mirren, Best Actress as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen (2006) Colin Firth, Best Actor as King George VI in The King's Speech (2010) Married (or Attached) Oscar-Winners: Only three times have married couples (husband-wife) won acting Oscars: Laurence Olivier, Best Actor for Hamlet (1948), and Vivien Leigh, Best Actress for Gone With the Wind (1939) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) [Note: They were not yet married when Leigh won her first Oscar in 1939.] Paul Newman, Best Actor for The Color of Money (1986), and Joanne Woodward, Best Actress for The Three Faces of Eve (1957

).

[Note: They were married in 1958, prior to Woodward receiving 1957's Best Actress Award.] Newman also directed Woodward to her second Best Actress nomination for his Best Picture-nominated film Rachel, Rachel (1968).

Catherine Zeta-Jones, Best Supporting Actress for Chicago (2002), and husband Michael Douglas, Best Actor for Wall Street (1987) [Note: The couple were not married until the year 2000.] There are others (girlfriend/boyfriend, or unmarried companions) who are close to (or have achieved) the same milestone: Spencer Tracy, Best Actor and Katharine Hepburn, Best Actress for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) Diane Keaton, Best Actress winner for Best Director-winning Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977) - although they were romantically linked, they never married Amy Madigan, Best Supporting Actress for Twice in a Lifetime (1985), and Ed Harris, nominated four times (1995, 1998, 2000, 2002) [Note: Harris directed himself to a Best Actor nomination for Pollock (2000).] Susan Sarandon, Best Actress for Dead Man Walking (1995) (directed by her Best Director-nominated husband (unofficial live-in) Tim Robbins); Robbins won Best Supporting Actor for Mystic River (2003);

 earlier, Sarandon was married to Chris Sarandon, nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Others: Jack Nicholson-Anjelica Huston, Al Pacino-Diane Keaton, and William Hurt-Marlee Matlin Married (or Attached) Oscar-Nominees: Five married couples have earned acting nominations in the same year (three times, a husband-and-wife team have been nominated for the same picture): Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Best Actor and Best Actress nominations for The Guardsman (1932) - both lost Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress nominations for Witness for the Prosecution (1957) - both lost Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (win), Best Actor and Best Actress nominations for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(1966) Frank Sinatra, Best Supporting Actor nomination (and win) for From Here to Eternity (1953) , and Ava Gardner, Best Actress nomination for Mogambo (1953) Rex Harrison, Best Actor nomination for Cleopatra (1963), and Rachel Roberts, Best Actress nomination for This Sporting Life (1963) The only divorced couple to co-star in a film with each receiving an Oscar nomination: William Powell and Carole Lombard, Best Actor and Best Actress nominations for My Man Godfrey (1936) Brother-Sister Oscar Winners/Nominees: The only brother and sister to win acting Oscars are: Lionel Barrymore, Best Actor for A Free Soul (1930/31) Ethel Barrymore, Best Supporting Actress for None But the Lonely Heart (1944) The only sisters to win acting Oscars are: Joan Fontaine, Best Actress for Suspicion (1941) Olivia de Havilland, Best Actress for To Each His Own (1946), and The Heiress (1949) The only brothers nominated for acting Oscars are: River Phoenix, nominated as Best Supporting Actor for Running

 on Empty (1988) Joaquin Phoenix, nominated as Best Supporting Actor for Gladiator (2000), Best Actor for Walk the Line (2005), and Best Actor for The Master (2012) Youngest and Oldest Best Actors: Nominees and Winners Note: The calculated time is from date of birth to the date of either (1) the nominations announcement, or (2) the date of the awards ceremony.

Youngest Best Actor Nominee Forest Whitaker winning Best Actor - YouTube Forest Whitaker winning Best Actor Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Apr 24, 2008 Reese Witherspoon presenting the Best Actor Oscar® to Forest Whitaker for his performance in "The Last King of Scotland" -the 79th Annual Academy Awards® in 2007. Category The Last King of Scotland | Film | The Guardian The Last King of Scotland 3 / 5 stars Cert 15 Forest Whitaker won the best actor Oscar for his performance as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland Share on Messenger Close Since he played Charlie Parker in Bird 19 long years ago, Forest Whitaker hasn't had much opportunity to let rip in a rampaging lead role and his Idi Amin here shows what we've been missing from casting directors' reluctance to pick an overweight, lazy-eyed actor when they could have Denzel Washington as straight hero or Eddie Murphy as box-office guarantor.

Whitaker pulls off both elements of the African dictator, unique in recent history in combining bloodthirsty tyranny and buffoonishness: he was half Stalin, half Boris Johnson, but as the end credit informs us, his rule was also responsible for 300,000 deaths. A DVD extra on the real Amin includes input from Jon Snow and fleeting footage of the General, the most famous African before Mandela's release. Ugandan cast members get their say (the father of one was an Amin victim) and Giles Foden, who helped adapt the screenplay from his book, describes it as "80% fiction but mostly fact." This is an Oscar-winning role in the grand manner in an adaptation that is in good hands: Kevin Macdonald gave us the unforgettable documentaries Touching the Void and One Day in September and the screenplay is by Peter Morgan, who has brought recent history to life in The Deal, The Queen and Longford. Conviction is helped by the Ugandan location shooting - you can't fake Africa's red earth. James McAvoy is the newly qualified Scottish doctor who becomes the dictator's confidante.

The basic set-up - a naive young adventurer way out of his depth and almost paying for it with his life - is ideal for identification purposes for a mainly white audience and the film works well as a thriller, as well as reminding us of a scarcely credible rule: Amin was just one of many dictators the west thought of as "one of us" before he proved to be the opposite, but he alone promised to send food parcels to England during its grim 1970s of strikes and the three-day week. The Last King of Scotland | Film | The Guardian The Last King of Scotland 4 / 5 stars Cert 15 Forest Whitaker won the best actor Oscar for his performance as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland Friday 12 January 2007 11.48 EST First published on Friday 12 January 2007 11.48 EST Share on Messenger Close Talk about getting your teeth into a juicy role. In Idi Amin, the great tyrant of Uganda from 1971 to 1979, Forest Whitaker has been given a sextuple whopper with extra cheese - and he supplies the relish.

Resplendent in his uniform and medals, Whitaker's Amin is a gloriously mad and grandiloquent figure, conceived by screenwriters Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock as a Day-Glo Shakespearean monster, with audacious hints of Othello and even Titus Andronicus, a monster for whom they have written boldly extended dialogue scenes of unabashed intelligence and theatricality. Kevin Macdonald is the award-winning documentary-maker making his feature debut with this cracking adaptation of Giles Foden's novel, telling the fictionalised story of Africa's panto-villain ruler, the blood-stained joker who killed 300,000 Ugandans. In the lead role of a lifetime, Whitaker treats the audience to a full-throated, technically accomplished cadenza of pure acting exuberance, the kind of performance that you feel ashamed for enjoying quite so much. The story imagines an appalled witness-cum-accomplice to Amin's crimes in the form of Nicholas Garrigan, a white Scottish doctor who comes out to Africa to work for a medical mission, but keenly in search of new excitements.

He is played by James McAvoy , who gives his most confident and screen-filling performance yet. Garrigan is young but not innocent exactly, and is dangerously excited by witnessing a rabble-rousing speech given by General Amin soon after a coup has brought him to power. Something in Amin's demagoguery answers a streak of craziness in Garrigan himself. His fate turns on being called upon to treat Amin for an injured hand after the presidential motorcade has crashed into a cow; typically, Uganda's sociopathic drama-queen is behaving as if every bone is broken. Unable to concentrate on his bandaging on account of the dying animal's incessant lowing, Garrigan impulsively grabs Amin's own pistol and, through a scary mixture of compassion and irritation, shoots it dead. This act of mad presumption could have earned Garrigan a bullet in the head from any of Amin's trigger-happy guard, but with Caligulan caprice, the president decides that he adores the feisty, straight-talking Scot.

He affects to see in Scottish devolutionary ambition a parallel to Africa's own struggle against the English bwana, and regales Garrigan with stories of how he trained among Scottish soldiers with the King's African Rifles. He even offers him a job as his personal physician - instantly and bizarrely entrusting him with confidences of state. It all soon goes to Garrigan's head. Whitaker endows Amin with quicksilver mood changes, turning on a sixpence from terrifying bluster to grinning seduction and wheedling charm, and then to childlike paranoia and fear. Nothing is more scary than a tyrant's good mood, and Whitaker's celebratory, menacing grins light up the screen with sulphurous malice. There are displays of bullying humour which elicit nervous grins from a jittery bunch of courtiers, who know that they might be put to the sword at any moment. It is particularly embarrassing when Amin insists on attending state events dressed in the kilt, beaming indulgently while listening to African arrangements of Scottish folk songs and, in one droll moment, actually playing a melancholy tune himself on the accordion. His anger is, conversely, scarily blank.

The fish-eyed stare has the implacable quality of a predator and his hectoring rages, punctuated by aggressive barks of "Huh?" feel like kidney punches. Yet more disconcerting and intimidating are Amin's crazy lurches of non-logic. After his expulsion of Ugandan Asians is denounced throughout the international press, Amin angrily demands to know why Garrigan did not warn him not to do it, and when Garrigan furiously protests that he did precisely this, Amin declares: "Ah, but you did not persuade me, Nicholas!" Set against these loopy twists of despot reasoning are Amin's sudden, brutally perceptive taunts: he challenges Garrigan to admit that he came to Africa hoping to play the great white hunter - and he is right. This monster has, it seems, been at least partly created by the British government (represented by Simon McBurney's reptilian diplomat, Stone), who are content to see a brutal but essentially biddable and pro-British strongman who will function as a bulwark against communism in Africa. It is from Stone that Garrigan will learn the nature of his Faustian bargain, when Stone agrees to get him out - for a price.

Morgan and Brock have injected love interest into Foden's original source material by making the grisly fate of Amin's third wife Kay intertwine with that of Garrigan himself, and Garrigan's sexual and political transgressions climax with two scenes of gruesome violence as the butchery and sadism of Amin's rule become all too apparent. This is a thoroughly enjoyable, confident, dramatically satisfying movie from Macdonald, and incidentally another triumph for Peter Morgan, for whom the period now seems to offer any amount of rich material. (The rumoured Brian Clough film adapted by Morgan from David Peace's novel The Damned Utd sounds intriguing.) The Last King of Scotland is a riveting satire of white Europe's horrified fascination with Africa as a Conradian heart of darkness, which is nevertheless ripe for plunder for a sufficiently cocksure adventurer. It is, above all things, a fantastic display of old-fashioned character acting from Forest Whitaker in a satanically villainous role. This is the kind of performance for which awards are designed. Inside the big picture show. Jan.

31 2007 12:24 PM Based on True Events By Kim Masters Catching up on homework: Well, we finally got around to slipping The Last King of Scotland into the DVD player. For some reason it took a while to bring ourselves to watch the bloody mayhem that must be a part of any movie about Idi Amin—and part of many films angling for Oscar. At the beginning, there was the inevitable "inspired by true events" claim that is also mandatory for many movies angling for Oscar. After that unfolds a preposterous tale—and there are major spoilers to come—that left us wondering, exactly which true events inspired this? At a glance, the only facts in the film are that there was a deranged dictator named Idi Amin in a place called Uganda and, at one time, a hijacked Air France airliner landed there. * The movie, based on an acclaimed novel by Giles Foden, tells the tale of a young Scottish doctor who finds himself a favorite of Idi Amin. The doctor can be rather plucky with Amin but generally ignores the growing evidence of the hideous truth.

He busies himself with knocking up one of Amin's wives and then getting her an abortion. Unfortunately the boss is wise to him and has him hung by hooks thrust into his flesh. Far more fortunately, this hanging takes place at the airport at the exact moment when some Entebbe hostages are being released. A noble colleague sacrifices himself to free the bloodied doctor, who slinks off with the Entebbe hostages. His doomed savior admonishes him to tell the world of the outrages perpetrated in Uganda. Advertisement This series of astonishing events made us curious about the truth upon which the story was based. It was late, so we were left with Wikipedia. (In the Internet age, truth is easy to come by—right?) We found that the character of the young doctor was loosely based on a fellow named Bob Astles, who was neither Scottish nor a doctor. Twice married, he was an English adventurer who worked for Amin while running a pineapple farm as well as an aviation service. He later said, "I kept my eyes shut, I said nothing about what I saw, which is what they liked." Astles eventually became the head of Amin's anti-corruption squad.

"Until today, what Astles did or did not do during Amin's brutal tenure is conjecture," the Wikipedia article concludes. "He was feared, and considered by many to be a malign influence on the dictator; others thought he was a moderating presence." It's imperative for novelists to invent, of course, but why does the film industry have a compulsion to palm off stories based on "true" events that are not just miles but light-years from the truth? Not that many people will see The Last King of Scotland—although more than might be expected, thanks to Forest Whitaker's almost assured best actor award. And how many of them will walk away thinking they've seen something that is more true than not? The bottom line is that Hollywood has little respect for the truth. When he was making JFK, Oliver Stone became enraged when George Lardner, a Washington Post reporter who had covered the assassination of John Kennedy, got hold of a script and denounced the story as preposterous. It wasn't fair, Stone said, to judge an unfinished movie by a screenplay.

Pressed about whether the misrepresentations in the screenplay wouldn't also be in the film, Stone said the movie would represent an "essential truth," and that adherence to actual fact was less important. Advertisement And there you have the Hollywood attitude—the movie version is the one that counts. The only time we can remember that this approach was stuffed up the industry's nose was when the 1999 film The Hurricane was attacked for misrepresenting facts about boxer Rubin Carter. That episode did not teach the industry caution. Instead, a lot of time and expense is devoted to re-creating the look and feel of a period with no regard to what actually occurred. Many will defend the Hollywood way as an exercise of the artist's prerogative. And obviously there are many immortal stories told in historical settings. But it would have been peculiar if Thackeray suggested that Vanity Fair was "inspired by true events" because his characters were caught up in the Napoleonic Wars. And, if you are dealing with something as momentous as the assassination of a president, you might want to stick to facts that were dramatic enough.

If you have a strong story—a fiction about a young doctor and an African dictator—why not just embrace it for what it is and lose the tenuous "true story" claim? Diddling with history, as we've seen, can be a dangerous business. ( link ) Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 Advertisement Another helping : More scoop on the earlier report that Brad Grey was denied credit on The Departed. The academy is searching its soul. Last night, the academy decided that Brad Grey cannot accept an Oscar should The Departed win in the best picture category. The academy also decided that only three of five producers will be permitted to accept the award for Little Miss Sunshine should it win. Advertisement The academy giveth, the academy taketh away. The academy has said it will let the Producers Guild decide the issue of who deserves a "produced by" credit for award purposes. The guild attempts to vet the question thoroughly. It decided that Grey didn't deserve the "produced by" credit for The Departed. But it also named five producers for Little Miss Sunshine. Here's where the academy parted ways with the guild.

The academy has held that no more than three people should go on stage to receive the best picture award. So it booted two of the five Sunshine producers. It's a tough break for Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger, who first shopped the script around Hollywood, recruited the directors, and who, most importantly, were sufficiently involved throughout to get the "produced by" credit from the guild. The arbitrariness of this decision is apparent even to the academy, and we now hear that the group will re-evaluate its rules and consider whether it should just stick with the guild decisions on who gets to accept the best picture award in the future. Advertisement It may be too late for Yerxa and Berger. But their picture did set a Sundance record when it sold for $10.5 million. It has silenced those who mocked Fox Searchlight for overpaying, as the film has grossed almost $100 million worldwide with more to come (pretty good margins for a movie that cost about $8 million). But no producer wants to be the one who was treated so unfairly that the academy had to reconsider its rules. 5:15 P.M.

( link ) Here's a scoop : Sources tell us that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has decided not to recognize Paramount chief Brad Grey as a producer on The Departed. Recall that Grey had helped to put the movie together as a manager/producer before he assumed his current role. The Producers Guild had denied him a "produced by" credit, a decision that he appealed unsuccessfully. The academy generally follows the guild's lead on this issue, but Grey nonetheless appealed. Now, that appeal has apparently been denied, meaning that should The Departed win on Oscar night, Grey will have to content himself with a quick hug in the aisle. Since the film was released by Warner, and Paramount has Babel in contention, some in the industry feel that's the appropriate result. 2:07 P.M. ( link ) Thursday, Jan. 25, 2007 Men in Black: Creative Artists Agency has just moved into its formidable new digs (our friends at Defamer have already noted the terror that struck a Century City denizen who observed an incursion of agents into a shopping-mall food court). The new location presumably will be quite comfortable once they get the air-conditioning trouble straightened out.

Meanwhile, CAA's rivals can content themselves with the image of CAA agents, for once, sweating. But what of CAA's old home at the intersection of Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards? The gleaming I.M. Pei-designed monument to CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz's lofty dream? It seems just yesterday that ground was broken there with a feng shui ceremony and a flight of white birds. Well, the feng shui seems to have worked well for the agency, which dominates the industry. But it didn't do much for the chi between the former CAA partners who own the now-empty building. Last May, the Los Angeles Times speculated that after CAA departed, the building would become "the most expensive Beverly Hills office space in memory." A tenant would ante up about $6 million a year—or a pricey $5 a square foot—for this influential address. But no one has stepped up. The building is owned by Ovitz and erstwhile partners Ron Meyer (the head of Universal Studios), producer Bill Haber, and former CAA Chief Financial Officer Robert Goldman.

CAA has rented the building from them since 1995 and—according to at least one source with firsthand knowledge of the situation—is still paying rent. And the building—with its giant, custom-made Roy Lichtenstein painting still in the lobby—is standing vacant. More than a year ago, the owners hired the Cushman & Wakefield brokerage firm to lease the building. But then, nothing happened. "It's the weirdest thing," says veteran Beverly Hills real estate agent Gary Weiss. "All of us don't understand it." Maybe it's not so weird after all. The building has a curving facade, and the space inside is idiosyncratic and difficult to reconfigure. With its soaring atrium, a tenant would be paying a lot for space that can't be put to use. When Ovitz was working on the plans, Weiss says, "I don't think they paid much attention to whether it was efficient or not." Then there's the question of what to do with the Lichtenstein. The canvas is gigantic—the artist worked on it in situ—so it's not something that could hang in one's living room or even in an ordinary office lobby.

It would be a problem, in fact, to get it out of the building. Sotheby's has apparently advised that it can't be removed from its stretcher without damaging it. "You tell me how you move that," says a longtime CAA partner. The former CAA partners who own the building (and the painting) put Ovitz in charge of it back in the late 1980s, when it was conceived, and that's the way it is today. Meyer has since said that at the time, he was like an abused spouse in a trance. He could hardly have imagined the acrimony that would follow when the marriage split up, as it did in 1995. (When Meyer landed the job at Universal—a position that Ovitz had sought for himself—Ovitz's incredulous response at learning that Meyer had gotten the offer was enough to sour the relationship. Matters didn't improve when Ovitz later tried to purchase land in Malibu that Meyer had picked out for his dream house.) Now Meyer must wait for Ovitz to rent, sell, buy—do something with the building.

One CAA agent said he'd heard a rumor that Ovitz may want to turn the space into a museum. Through a spokesman, Ovitz dismissed that idea. Certainly Ovitz has a big, expensive collection of modern art (not to mention an ego that could use a new monument, following his ill-fated tenure at Disney and the failure of his management company). And Lichtenstein is already there. Ovitz didn't respond to queries about what he intends to do with the building. ( link ) Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2007 The Field Shapes Up: This year's race for the best picture Oscar is starting to resemble the 2008 presidential campaign: so many contenders but no one compelling choice. By now, you know that Dreamgirls pulled in the most nominations—eight—but was snubbed for best picture and best director. It is fascinating to imagine how this news is being received at Paramount headquarters, where Babel (from the studio's Vantage label) got seven nominations, including the big ones. All has turned out well for studio chief Brad Grey.

He got to issue a press release proclaiming that his studio led with 19 nominations, knowing that his friends at his DreamWorks "label" were left to lick their gaping wounds. Yes, this was a bad day for DreamWorks (though not for composer Henry Krieger, who appears to be the single most nominated individual, with three best song nods for Dreamgirls). Clint Eastwood, having been snubbed by the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild, the Producers Guild, and the Screen Actors Guild, had to be at least a little surprised to be running another victory lap with his best director nod for Letters From Iwo Jima. "When it comes to the Academy, never overlook an old guy who can do it and do it well," chortled one voting member. The academy showed a healthy respect for diversity. African or African-American actors got five of 20 nominations (Forest Whitaker, Eddie Murphy, Will Smith, Jennifer Hudson, and Djimon Hounsou).

And the academy recognized all three of the three amigos—Alejandro González Iñárritu for Babel, Guillermo del Toro (for best foreign-language nominee Pan's Labyrinth), and Alfonso Cuarón for writing and editing Children of Men. As the dust settles, little light has been shed on the eventual best picture winner. Some think that since only Babel and The Departed were nominated in the influential editing category, the race comes down to those two. Others point out that a contingent of academy voters hates Babel and dreads nothing more than seeing it become this year's Crash. Another group seems inclined to go only so far for Scorsese—and especially for this movie, which seems to have a number of endings. So, if you need help with this year's office pool, don't call us. There are a lot of factions out there—making for mathematical possibilities too weird to contemplate. ( link ) Correction , Jan. 31, 2007: The article originally and incorrectly identified a hijacked Air France airliner as an El Al airliner.

( Return to the corrected sentence.) THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND's Forest Whitaker Wins G | Blog | Fox Searchlight THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND's Forest Whitaker Wins G Cameron Cook January 16, 2007 Forest Whitaker won the Golden Globe ® for Best Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama) for his role as the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. His competition in that category included: Leonardo DiCaprio  Blood Diamond

Question: Who won the 2007 Best Actor Oscar for his role in the film 'The Last King Of Scotland'?
Answer: Forest Whitaker