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Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress

Facts & Trivia

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Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Sections

Best Actress - Facts & Trivia | Best Supporting Actress - Facts & Trivia | Winners Chart

The Best Supporting Actress Academy Awards
Facts and Trivia

The Best Supporting Actress award should actually be titled "the best performance by an actress in a supporting role."

In 1936, the acting awards were expanded to start recognizing supporting roles. Best Supporting Actress Oscars are traditionally given to actors who stand out in small roles.

It is quite common that the winner in the Best Supporting Actress category is either an older and established performer, or very young and inexperienced. First-time nominees often win in this category.

The Top Best Supporting Actress Winners:

These are only two actresses with two Best Supporting Actress awards - both were two-for-three in this category:

Top Best Supporting Actress
Oscar Winners
Best Supporting Actress Wins

Shelley Winters
4 career nominations
(3 B.S.A. noms),
2 wins
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
A Patch of Blue (1965)

Dianne Wiest
3 career nominations
(3 B.S.A. noms),
2 wins
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

Note: Dianne Wiest is also the only winner as Best Supporting Actress to have received more than one Oscar for work in a single director's films (Woody Allen directed both of her award-winning films).

The Most Best Supporting Actress Nominations (and Wins):

One actress has received six Best Supporting Actress nominations (without winning), while seven other actresses have received four Best Supporting Actress nominations (four of them won subsequent awards).

The actress with the most Best Supporting Actress nominations (with no wins) is Thelma Ritter, followed by Amy Adams.

Actresses with the most Best Supporting Actress nominations (in parentheses) include:

Post-Humous Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nominees/Winners:

There have been no post-humous nominees for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar Academy Award.

Film Debut Nominees/Winners for Best Supporting Actress Oscars:

Only nine actresses have won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for their debut performance (in a feature film) in a substantial film role, while many others (a sampling) received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for a substantial role in a film debut (or during the first year of their career):

Actresses Winning at Least One Statuette in Both the Lead and Supporting Categories:

There are many actresses who have won only one Best Supporting Actress award. Seven actresses have won acting awards in both the lead (BA) and supporting (BSA) categories:

Back-to-Back Winners:

No Best Supporting Actress has won two Academy Awards in a row. Jason Robards is the only star to win back-to-back Best Supporting Actor Oscars.

Multiple Nominations for a Single Performer:

No single performer has ever won two performing awards in the same year. There have been a total of twelve performers who are double nominees - that means that they have received two acting nominations in the same year. Three were actors and nine were actresses (wins are marked with *). (See the Best Supporting Actor page for further information on male double nominees.) Of the 12 performers (actors and actresses) who've been recognized with nods for two performances in the same year, seven of them ended up winning one of the trophies.

Double nominees usually win in one category. Often, actresses have been nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for different films in the same year. In 1938, Fay Bainter received the first simultaneous nominations of any performer in lead and supporting categories (wins are marked with *). Three of the eight actresses won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, and only one (Holly Hunter) of the eight won the Best Actress Oscar, while Sigourney Weaver, Emma Thompson, Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett and Scarlet Johansson lost both bids.

Consecutive Double-Nominations for Best Supporting Actress:

African-American (or Black) Notables:

There have only been thirty-two nominations for black performers for Best Supporting Actress (with only eleven winners), divided amongst twenty-nine different performers. A few nominees were nominated in the category more than once (Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer):

#
Best Supporting Actress Nominee
Film
1
Hattie McDaniel Gone With The Wind (1939) (win)
2
Ethel Waters Pinky (1949)
3
Juanita Moore Imitation of Life (1959)
4
Bea Richards Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
5
Alfre Woodard Cross Creek (1983)
6
Margaret Avery The Color Purple (1985)
7
Oprah Winfrey The Color Purple (1985)
8
Whoopi Goldberg Ghost (1990) (win)
9
Marianne Jean-Baptiste Secrets & Lies (1996)
10
Queen Latifah Chicago (2002)
11
Sophie Okonedo Hotel Rwanda (2004)
12
Jennifer Hudson Dreamgirls (2006) (win)
13
Ruby Dee American Gangster (2007)
14
Viola Davis Doubt (2008)
15
Taraji P. Henson The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
16
Mo'Nique Precious (2009) (win)
17
Octavia Spencer The Help (2011) (win)
18
Lupita Nyong'o 12 Years a Slave (2013) (win)
19 Viola Davis Fences (2016) (win)
20 Naomie Harris Moonlight (2016)
21 Octavia Spencer Hidden Figures (2016)
22 Octavia Spencer The Shape of Water (2017)
23 Mary J. Blige Mudbound (2017)
24
Regina King If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) (win)
25 Ariana De Bose West Side Story (2021) (win)
26 Aunjanue Ellis King Richard (2021)
27 Angela Bassett Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
28 Da'Vine Joy Randolph The Holdovers (2023) (win)
29 Danielle Brooks The Color Purple (2023)
30 Zoe Saldaña Emilia Pérez (2024) (win)
31 Wunmi Mosaku (Nigerian-British) Sinners (2025)
32 Teyana Taylor One Battle After Another (2025)

Only eighteen black performers have won the Oscar in the supporting category (seven Best Supporting Actor, eleven Best Supporting Actress). Only eleven African-American (or black) actresses have won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar:

  1. Hattie McDaniel for Gone With The Wind (1939) - the first
  2. Whoopi Goldberg for Ghost (1990) - 51 years later!
  3. Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls (2006)
  4. Mo'Nique for Precious (2009)
  5. Octavia Spencer for The Help (2011)
  6. Lupita Nyong'o for 12 Years a Slave (2013)
  7. Viola Davis for Fences (2016)
  8. Regina King for If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
  9. Ariana De Bose for West Side Story (2021)
  10. Da'Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers (2023)
  11. Zoe Saldaña (self-identifying as from the Dominican Republic) for Emilia Pérez (2024)

Only twenty-four awards have been won by African-Americans (or blacks) in both lead and supporting categories (five Best Actor, one Best Actress, seven Best Supporting Actor, and eleven Best Supporting Actress).

The Most Nominations for a Black Actress:

2016 was the first year that a single acting category (Best Supporting Actress) featured three black nominees:

Latino, Asian and Other Ethnic-Minority (Non-English) Performers:

There have been very few ethnic/minority (or non-English) performance wins for Best Supporting Actress. They include:

Notable ethnic/minority performance nominations for Best Supporting Actress include:

Best Supporting Actress Oscar Winners/Nominees: Prostitute Roles

A large number of actresses have won the supporting actress Oscar for portraying hookers (girls of the night, party girls, whores, call girls, madams, etc.) or loose women (mistresses, promiscuous ladies, etc.), for example:

Shortest:

The shortest performance to win an Oscar was in the Best Supporting Actress category:

The shortest performance to be nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar:

Non-Speaking Role Nominees/Winners:

Multiple Nominations (and Wins) for the Same Character:

It has only happened once - two actresses were Oscar winners for playing the same character in two different films:

Related Oscar Winners and Nominees: Father-Son, Father-Daughter, Mother-Daughter

Father-son acting nominees include:

The only father-son/daughter Oscar nominees are Henry Fonda, Peter Fonda (nominated as Best Actor for Ulee's Gold (1997)), and Jane Fonda. Henry and Jane are also the only father-daughter duo nominated for the same film: On Golden Pond (1981).

Winning father-daughter acting combos include:

Nominated father-daughter acting combos also include:

Michael, Vanessa, and Lynn Redgrave are the only father-daughter/daughter group among acting nominees. Michael's single nomination was for Mourning Becomes Electra (1947).

The only mother-daughter duo to have won performance Oscars are:

The first and only mother-daughter acting pair nominated for the same film in Oscar history:

Films with Three Best Supporting Actress Nominees:

Only one film has had three nominees for Best Supporting Actress:

Other Notables:

Opposite Gender Role Nominees (With Two Winners)

For four years in a row (1978-1981), the Best Supporting Actress winner's initials were M.S.: Maggie Smith, Meryl Streep, Mary Steenbergen, Maureen Stapleton.

Cate Blanchett's Best Supporting Actress Oscar win for The Aviator (2004) in her role as Katharine Hepburn marked the first time a performer won an Oscar for playing an Oscar-winning actress.

Ruth Gordon, a Broadway playwright (Years Ago, Over Twenty-One), stage actress (Tony Award-nominated in 1956 for The Matchmaker), Oscar-nominated screenwriter (A Double Life (1947), Adam's Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952), co-scripted with husband Garson Kanin), book author (Myself Among Others, An Open Book, and My Side), Golden Globe Award winner (Best Supporting Actress for Inside Daisy Clover (1965) for which she also had an Oscar nomination), and Emmy Award winner (for a 1978 episode of Taxi) won Best Supporting Actress (and a Golden Globe) for her performance in Rosemary's Baby (1968) . She was also nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance as Maude in Harold and Maude (1971).

Youngest and Oldest Best Supporting Actresses: 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 Supporting Actress Nominee:
Youngest Best Supporting Actress Winner:
Oldest Best Supporting Actress Nominee:
Oldest Best Supporting Actress Winner:
10 years (and 106 days)
Tatum O'Neal for Paper Moon (1973)
10 years (and 148 days)
Tatum O'Neal for Paper Moon (1973)
87 years (and 221 days)
Gloria Stuart for Titanic (1997)
77 years (and 93 days)
Peggy Ashcroft for A Passage to India (1984)
Youngest Best Supporting Actress Nominee Runner-Ups:
Youngest Best Supporting Actress Winner Runner-Ups:
Oldest Best Supporting Actress Nominee Runner-Ups:
Oldest Best Supporting Actress Winner Runner-Ups:

10 years (and 141 days)
Mary Badham for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

10 years (and 192 days)
Quinn Cummings for The Goodbye Girl (1977)

10 years (and 284 days)
Abigail Breslin for Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

11 years (and 181 days)
Patty McCormack for The Bad Seed (1956)

11 years (and 200 days)
Anna Paquin for The Piano (1993)

13 years (and 285 days)
Saoirse Ronan for Atonement (2007)

14 years (and 5 days)
Bonita Granville for These Three (1936)

14 years (and 45 days)
Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit (2010)

14 years (and 83 days)
Jodie Foster for Taxi Driver (1976)

11 years (and 240 days)
Anna Paquin for The Piano (1993)

16 years (and 115 days)
Patty Duke for The Miracle Worker (1962)

23 years (and 310 days)
Anne Baxter for The Razor's Edge (1946)

24 years (and 128 days)
Teresa Wright for Mrs. Miniver (1942)

24 years (and 137 days)
Goldie Hawn for Cactus Flower (1969)

24 years (and 296 days)
Angelina Jolie for Girl, Interrupted (1999)

25 years (and 166 days)
Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls (2006)

27 years (and 17 days)
Shirley Jones for Elmer Gantry (1960)

27 years (and 111 days)
Gloria Grahame for The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)

27 years (and 148 days)
Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl (2015)

87 years (and 2 months)
Judi Dench for Belfast (2021)

84 years (and 71 days)
June Squibb for Nebraska (2013)

83 years (and 87 days)
Ruby Dee for American Gangster (2007)

82 years (and 257 days)
Jessica Tandy for Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)

82 years (and 37 days)
Eva Le Gallienne for Resurrection (1980)

79 years (and 26 days)
Ann Sothern for The Whales of August (1987)

77 years (and 234 days)
May Whitty for Mrs. Miniver (1942)

77 years (and 46 days)
Peggy Ashcroft for A Passage to India (1984)

77 years (and 15 days)
Edith Evans for The Chalk Garden (1964)

76 years (and 67 days)
Gladys Cooper for My Fair Lady (1964)

76 years (and 16 days)
Edith Evans for Tom Jones (1963)

75 years
Amy Madigan for Weapons (2025)

74 years (and 85 days)
Josephine Hull for Harvey (1950)

73 years (and 310 days) Yuh-Jung Youn for Minari (2020)

72 years (and 166 days)
Ruth Gordon for Rosemary's Baby (1968)

71 years (and 338 days)
Margaret Rutherford for The V.I.P.s (1963)

70 years (and 187 days)
Helen Hayes for Airport (1970)

65 years (and 212 days)
Ethel Barrymore for None But the Lonely Heart (1944)

64 years (and 102 days)
Judi Dench for Shakespeare for Love (1998)

62 years (and 238 days)
Beatrice Straight for Network (1976)

61 years (and 135 days)
Jane Darwell for The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

59 years (and 222 days)
Ingrid Bergman for Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

Six years (and 310 days) Shirley Temple was the youngest performer to win an Academy Award when she won an unofficial honorary 'juvenile' Academy Award statuette in 1934, presented on February 27, 1935.

94 years (and 341 days) Eli Wallach was the oldest male performer to receive an honorary statuette, presented on November 13, 2010.

94 years (and 83 days) Maureen O'Hara was the oldest female performer to receive an honorary statuette, presented on November 8, 2014.


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