Oh neat! Did said teacher have any stories about that?
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I think they took the same marine biology course together; I dunno.
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Well, not me, because I’ve never acted in anything larger than a few lines in a stage play at school, but I CAN give you some fun Oscar facts in light of them airing soon, so… May I have the envelope(s) please?
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The oldest living Oscar winner is Eva Marie Saint, who is 98 years old. Which is actually older than the Oscars themselves; she was born in 1924, and they began in 1929. Saint won Best Supporting Actress for her role as Edie Doyle in On The Waterfront
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The shortest performance to ever win an Oscar was 5 minutes and 2 seconds in Network in 1976. Beatrice Straight won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in that film.
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A total of 11 children have been nominated for Oscars before their 12th birthdays, and two have won. The list comprises the following people:
-Justin Henry, 8 years 276 days old when nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979)
-Jackie Cooper, 9 years 20 days old when nominated for Best Actor for Skippy (1931)
-Tatum O’Neal, 10 years 106 days old when nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Piper Moon (1973; she won)
-Mary Badham, 10 years 141 days old when nominated for Best Supporting Actress in To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)
-Quvenzhane Wallis, 9 years 135 days old when nominated for Best Actress in Beasts of the Southern Wilds (2012)
-Quinn Cummings, 10 years 192 days old when nominated for Best Supporting Actress for The Goodbye Girl (1977)
-Abigail Breslin, 10 years 284 days old when nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
-Patty McCormack, 11 years 181 days old when nominated for Best Supporting Actress for The Bad Seed (1956)
-Anna Paquin, 11 years 200 days old when nominated for Bes Supporting Actress for The Piano (1993; she won)
-Haley Joel Osment, 11 years 311 days old when nominated for Best Supporting Actor for The Sixth Sense (1999)
-Brandon deWilde, 11 years 312 days old when nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Shane (1953) -
Only one person has ever won two Oscars for the same performance; a nonprofessional actor who lost both hands in WWII and performed a role in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). His name was Harold Russell, and he won Best Supporting Actor for his performance as a wounded soldier returning from war. The Academy’s board of directors didn’t believe Russell would win despite being nominated, so they created a special Oscar on his behalf literally the night before the Oscars aired because they wanted to honor him in some way. Russell accepted that award, and then beat out four acting legends (Charles Coburn, Claude Rains, Clifton Webb, and William Demarest) to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as well.
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Russell is also the only person who was ever able to legally sell their Oscar at auction. In 1993, Russell decided to sell his “competitive” Oscar (the one for Best Supporting Actor, not the honorary one) to help pay for his wife’s medical bills. The Academy had added a rule in 1950 which said that no future winners could sell their Oscar “without first offering to sell it to the Academy for the sum of $1”, but the rule did not apply to Russell since he won it three years prior. Then-president of the Academy, Karl Malden, tried to convince Russell not to sell the Oscar, even offering him a $20,000 interest free loan to return it, but Russell sold it to an anonymous buyer for $60,500.
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The only person to ever win an Oscar for playing a real-life Oscar winner is Cate Blanchett, who portrayed Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator in 2004. Blanchett won Best Supporting Actress for the performance, her first win. She’s been nominated for eight Oscars in the last 25 years. (While Renee Zellweger won her second Oscar for portraying Judy Garland, Garland never won a “competitive” Oscar, merely an honorary one, so it doesn’t count in this category)
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Katherine Hepburn holds the record for the most acting Oscar wins; all four were for Best Actress. In total, Hepburn received 12 Best Actress nominations throughout her career. She never attended the ceremonies to accept her awards, and indeed only appeared on stage at the Oscars once in her entire career; to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to Lawrence Weingarten.
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Walt Disney holds the record for the most Oscar wins AND nominations; he’s been nominated 59 times and won 22. The first nomination was in 1932 and the last was in 1969, and in 1954 he received a total of six nominations, which he won four of.
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In three separate instances two different actors have won an Oscar for portraying the same character. The most recent example was Ariana DeBose, who won Best Supporting Actress for playing Anita in the West Side Story remake; Rita Moreno won it herself for playing Anita in the 1961 version. Other examples include Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix (who portrayed the Joker in 2008 and 2019 respectively), and Marlon Brando and Robert DeNiro (who played Vito Corleone in 1972 and 1974, respectively; Marlon Brando notoriously refused to accept his award, instead sending Native American actress Sacheen Littlefeather to decline the award on his behalf.)
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Since the Academy Awards began in 1929, only 16 Oscars have been given out posthumously, and only two of those were in acting categories. Heath Ledger won posthumously for his performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight, and Peter Finch won posthumously for his role in Network.
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Midnight Cowboy is the only X-rated picture to win Best Picture. The 1969 movie won 3 Oscars total out of 7 nominations; Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, and was also nominated for Best Actor twice (Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight were both nominated), Sylvia Miles was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, and the film was also nominated for Best Editing.
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I think I’ve posted this one before, but Hattie McDaniel is the first black person to be nominated and win an Oscar (she won Best Supporting Actress for Gone With The Wind), but due to the rules at the Ambassador Hotel (where the Oscars were held that year), she almost wasn’t able to attend. The Gone With The Wind producer had to call in a special favor to allow McDaniel into the building, and she was still forced to sit in the back of the room where the ceremony was held.
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Only three actors have ever refused to accept their awards; as aforementioned, Marlon Brando, but also George C. Scott (declined his Best Actor Oscar for Patton because “he did not feel himself to be in any competition with other actors”; the film’s producer accepted the award on his behalf but returned it to the Academy the following day. Scott also refused his Best Supporting Actor win for The Hustler in 1961 and later revealed his true hatred for the Oscars, calling it a “meat parade” and stating he wanted nothing to do with it), and Dudley Nichols, a writer who declined his Best Writing award for The Informer (1936) due to a union boycott (the reason given was “because of the antagonism between several industry guilds and the Academy over union matters”; Nichols was a founder of the Screen Writers Guild)
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The shortest Oscar speech ever given was from Patty Duke, who simply said “thank you” when accepting the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Miracle Worker, where she portrayed Helen Keller. Other notably short Oscar speeches came from Joe Pesci (who simply said “It’s my privilege. Thank you.” when accepting the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Goodfellas), and Fred Zimmerman (who only said “thank you very much” when accepting Best Picture for A Man For All Seasons in 1967, but he at least had a good reason; he had just accepted the Best Director award a few minutes prior and had given a speech then).
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Edith Head is both the most-awarded and most-nominated woman in Oscars history; she has had 8 wins from 35 nominations. She’s iconic enough that Pixar used her as the inspiration for Edna Mode in The Incredibles. Head received those nominations in just 29 years total, from 1949-1978, and all of them were in Best Costume Design categories (which were originally separated by black and white and color films, but which were later combined into a single category in 1967). Some of the films Head won for included All About Eve, The Sting, Sabrina (hey, that’s my name!) and Roman Holiday.
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While no one has ever won the Best Actor for their debut performance, but four Best Actress wins were for a debut performance. Shirley Booth for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952), Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins (1964), Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl (1968), and Marlee Matlin for Children of a Lesser God (1986).
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No film has as of yet won Oscars for all four acting categories, but there are three films that have won the so-called Big 5 (Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, and Actress); namely It Happened One Night (1934), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), and Silence of the Lambs (1992).
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And finally, there have only been six ties on Oscar night, two of which occurred in acting categories. In 1932, there was a tie for Best Actor between Wallace Beery (The Champ) and Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde); in 1949 there was a tie for Best Documentary Short; in 1968 there was a tie for Best Actress between Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter) and Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl); in 1986 there was a tie for Best Documentary; and in 1994 there was a tie for Best Short Film (Live Action).
Random Facts Woman out!
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Reminds me of the Webby awards, where I think you have either five or six words for your speech and that’s it.
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Additionally, from Stalag 17 (1954)
William Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. His acceptance speech is one of the shortest on record (“thank you, thank you”); the TV broadcast had a strict cutoff time which forced Holden’s quick remarks. The frustrated Holden personally paid for advertisements in the Hollywood trade publications to thank everyone he wanted to on Oscar night.
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The oldest living Oscar nominee is Glynis Johns, who is 99.
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In football/soccer, when a single player scores certain numbers of goals, each number has a nickname. When scored by the same player:
- 2 is called a brace
- 3 a hat trick
- 4 a haul
- 5 a glut
- 6 a double hat trick
- 7 a haul trick
And yeah, I may have looked this up after Erling Haaland’s nonsense yesterday. 
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So what’s nine, a hat rack?
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Nine is a mandatory drug test.
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And a check of the finances of the opposition goalie. 
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I went digging to see if there is an actual term, and I found the following:
- 8 is a snowman (because of the 8 shape).
- 9 is a triple hat trick.
And my favorite is:
- 10 is “I’ve suspected match fixing since the 7th goal.”
(That last is unofficial, but my favorite.)
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I still think a “hat rack” sounds more imaginative than a “triple hat trick.”
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A grand hat party?
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[looks over to the Single Random Falsehoods thread]
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But it’s true.
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Richard Simmons was in Fellini’s Satyricon and he was fat.
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One that surprised me, Nicole Kidman was born in America and not in Australia.
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Because it came up in the Single Random Falsehoods thread, there’s actually a reason your glass of liquid is a little bit empty, besides, y’know, spilling.
If the glass was completely full and you tried to use a straw, you wouldn’t be able to use it. The straw relies on a difference in air pressure to send fluid up it.
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Time for another dump of random facts, this time featuring facts which are common knowledge in their respective countries of origin but which are unknown pretty much everywhere else!
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Tokyo, Japan, houses the world’s largest fish market, the Tsukiji Market. Yeah, but I bet they don’t toss the fish around like at the Pike Place Market…
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“Canada” comes from the Iroquois word “Kanata”, which means “village/settlement”. Yep, that’s right; Canada is basically named “village”. Ironic since their population is so widely spread out.
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Gloucestershire, England, is home to the most famous… cheese rolling competition. Is this a thing anywhere other than England? Asking for a friend…
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The Taj Mahal in India is situated right on the riverbank of the river Yamuna. And if that isn’t one of the most useless facts in existence…
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Tequila is named after the town it was birthed in, namely Santiago de Tequila. No I don’t know what country that is. Nor do I care to Google it.
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Brazil’s national dish is “Feijoada”, a black bean stew. Are national dishes a thing? And is the U.S.'s version just a hot dog?
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China’s national sport is “table tennis”, aka Ping Pong. I still am amazed that’s a “sport” that’s in the Olympics.
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The Australian Commonwealth Coat of Arms features two animals on it: a kangaroo and an emu. The kangaroo I get… but didn’t they fight a war with emus (and lose to them)?
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While it is estimated that Indonesia in totality is comprised of more than 18,000 islands, there are only five main islands. Wonder if any of the mini-islands are up for sale.
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The largest city in Pakistan based on population is Karachi, also known as “the city of lights”. Paris would like a word…
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Bangladesh’s national flag is a red circle on a green background. It’s supposed to symbolize a “rising new country”. Ummm… HOW?
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Tagalog is the national language of the Philippines. That’s it; that’s the fact.
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The Suez Canal has a dual purpose; while it connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, it also serves as the separating agent keeping Africa separate from Asia. So if they were still connected, would they be Africasia?
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Gummy bears were invented by the Germans. And we thank them for providing us with such a delicious treat.
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South Korea calculates age differently; due to these calculations, when a baby is born, they are 1 year old already.
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The Andean Condor is the national bird of Colombia. And I thought the U.S. national bird looked funny (when viewed from the front anyway)…
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28% of Ugandans have started their own businesses, making them the most entrepreneurial country in the world. And yet you can’t be gay there now…
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Argentina houses both the highest and lowest points of the Southern Hemisphere. The salt lake Laguna del Carbon is the lowest, and Aconcagua Mountain is the highest.
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Ukraine has 4,159 named mountains. No information on how many remain unnamed though.
Until my return…
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