As a follow-up to last week's blog about celebrities who changed their names and worked using a screen name, this week is part 1 of a 3-part blog series about movies and the Academy Awards. The 97th Annual Academy Awards Ceremony was last week, Sunday, March 2, 2025.
There are many people in the movie industry who are considered legends, those who received multiple nominations over the decades and deserved the Academy Award but never received that elusive prize. Some of the names will even strike you as What? That can't be true. He/She must have won at least once.
So, in no particular order, here is a cross-section of very deserving movie legends who were often nominated but missed out on the grand prize of the movie industry's top award.
1)
Alfred Hitchcock
With a string
of directorial masterpieces to his credit, he never won one of the prized
statuettes for directing. However, in
1968 he was presented an honorary Oscar® for his lifetime body of work.
2)
Cary Grant
He made it
look easy which sometimes prevented people from realizing just how good he
was—adept at drama and light comedy (and even slapstick, after all he started
his career as a vaudeville acrobat in England which certainly equipped him with
the dexterity and coordination to do physical comedy). Considered by many to be the epitome of the
romantic leading man. However, in 1970
he was presented an honorary Oscar® for his lifetime body of work.
3)
Peter O'Toole
He holds the
record for the most Best Actor nominations (8) without a win with his most
famous role probably Lawrence of Arabia. My personal favorite of Peter O'Toole's films
is My Favorite Year, one of his few
comedy films. However, in 2003 he was
presented an honorary Oscar® for his lifetime body of work.
4)
Deborah Kerr
With many
outstanding roles, certainly From Here To
Eternity and also The King And I,
she was nominated six times but no wins.
However, in 1994 she was presented an honorary Oscar® for her lifetime
body of work.
5)
Richard Burton
Many
outstanding performances including an exceptional one in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolfe where he co-starred with Elizabeth Taylor. Six nominations, five
of them for Best Actor, but no wins.
6) Albert Finney
The British
actor is probably best known for Tom
Jones, one of his earlier films.
He's garnered five nominations but no wins. One of my favorite Albert Finney roles is the
original film production of Agatha Christie's Murder On The Orient Express with his marvelous portrayal of
Hercule Poirot (supported by an incredible cast including several Oscar®
winners and nominees, among them multiple Oscar® winner Ingrid Bergman who won
an Oscar® for Best Supporting Actress in Murder
On The Orient Express). My other favorite Albert Finney movie role is as
Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1970 film Scrooge, the musical version of A
Christmas Carol.
7)
Angela Lansbury
Today she's
best known for her Emmy award winning role of Jessica Fletcher, the retired
school teacher turned mystery novelist and amateur sleuth in the long running
television series Murder, She Wrote. In addition to television, she has an
impressive string of Tony award winning Broadway performances. But oddly enough, even though she started her
career in films and received three Oscar® nominations, it's the acting award
that has remained elusive. My favorite
of her Oscar® nominations was for a riveting performance in the original film version
of The Manchurian Candidate with
Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey (she played Laurence Harvey's mother even
though they were only a few months apart in age).
8)
Fred Astaire
Although best
known for a stellar career in a long string of very successful musicals (many
with his long time partner, Ginger Rogers), his one and only nomination came
for a dramatic role in Towering Inferno. I remember being pleasantly surprised when I
saw his excellent performance in his first dramatic role, 1959's On The Beach—a story of nuclear war
aftermath starring Gregory Peck.
9)
Charlie Chaplin
He is one of
the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood. Even though he never won for either acting or
directing, I wasn't sure whether to add him to this list of never won an Oscar® because he did win
one for Best Original Musical Score in 1952 for Limelight. However, in 1972
he was presented with an honorary Oscar® for his lifetime body of work and
received the longest standing ovation in Academy Awards history (over twelve
minutes).
There are, of course, many more nominated actors/actresses/directors who deserve but haven't yet had their name engraved on an Oscar®.
