Every year the Academy Awards come around to interrupt our normal viewing schedule on television. Sometimes they will provide us with moments of joy, and even entertainment. But for the whole part, it’s a case of Hollywood basking in Hollywood glory. So to celebrate this once a year ordeal, we present you with 9 mind blowing Oscars facts.
1. The Most Successful Movies At The Oscars
Lets face it. The majority of movies that get released each year aren’t really all that special. Sure, some of them are entertaining, but how many of them are worth watching again a few times over? Not very many. And how many of them are really Oscars material? Even less. Which is why I suppose very few movies actually win a bag full of Oscars, if any. Which brings us to this fact. Which movies have won the most Oscars?
Only 3 films have won 11 Oscars. They are Ben Hur, Titanic and Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King. It was a 38 year gap between Ben Hur and Titanic. While these two movies could have won more, as they were nominated in even more categories, they were beaten by more deserving entrants. Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King however, is the only movie of the 3 to win an Academy Award for every category it was nominated in. That’s right, it received nominations for 11 categories, and won 11 Academy Awards. In theory had they received additional nominations for different categories they could hold the current record.
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2. Youngest Ever Oscar Winner Was 10
There’s a bit of a saying for those in the film industry. Don’t work with children or animals. The point of it is to say that they are extremely difficult to work with, and for a smooth and easier job during filming it’s best to avoid such a situation. But as we all know, sometimes it’s just not possible to make a movie without animals or children. I mean, could anyone imagine Home Alone without kids, or City Slickers without animals? What Kindergarten Cop or K9? Some movies just can’t avoid using these two groups. But sometimes the cast and crew are blessed with a real professional, be it a person or animal. A well trained animal makes life easy, and when a talented actor comes along, child or not, things couldn’t really be easier. So just imagine how great it would have been working with the youngest ever winner of an Oscar.
The youngest winner of an Academy Award was Tatum O’Neal for her performance as Addie Loggins in Paper Moon, (1973) when she was only 10 years old. She starred opposite her father in that movie, which may have made things just that little easier. She won the Oscar in the category of Best Supporting Actress in the 1974 Oscars ceremony.
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3. Walt Disney Has Won The Most Oscars
Just as with the above actress, when someone has talent, they have talent. And when they have talent, no amount of training will ever be enough to conquer it. Take for instance Walt Disney. He was the head of his massive company, and he started pretty much from scratch. Yet despite very humble beginnings, he managed to become one of the most powerful people in the movie industry. He was so powerful that he has won more Oscars than anyone else. Many more.
If I were to ask you how many Oscars has Walt Disney won, would you be able to come close? I’m talking about Walt Disney the man, not his company. What would you say? Five or ten? Keep going. Walt Disney has won a staggering 22 Oscars, winning four of them in one year. Not only that, but he was nominated 64 times. Those are figures that may never be beaten.
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4. Alfred Hitchcock Never Won An Oscar
Well, all I can say is that talent just isn’t enough if luck isn’t on your side. Take Disney’s remarkable record and compare it against someone like Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock was definitely a talented director, and knew the game as well as anyone else, but how well did he fare at the Oscars compared to not only Walt Disney, but also other directors such as Steven Spielberg?
Unlike the record holder Walt Disney, and other directors such as Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock has never won an Academy Award. Not one as director, ever. But he did win several consolation prizes.
His movies did win best picture, but the Oscar goes to the producer, not the director. We won a bit of a consolation prize at the 1968 Oscars winning the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in which he simply said in his acceptance speech, “thank you”.
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5. The Unluckiest Actor At The Oscars Is Peter O’Toole
Well if you started to feel sorry for Alfred Hitchcock, spare a thought for Peter O’Toole. As an actor, especially during his peak in stardom, he was one of the most bankable actors in the world. Just about everything he touched turned to gold. Except for the Academy. He is regarded as being the unluckiest actor at the Academy Awards.
So what makes Peter O’Toole so unlucky? Katharine Hepburn holds the record for most wins by an actor, with four in the best actress category. She has won one award for every two times that Peter O’Toole has been nominated. What makes peter o’Toole so unlucky at the Oscars is that despite being nominated eight times, he never won the main prize. He was just unlucky enough to come up against a more deserving recipient each time he was nominated.
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6. Anthony Hopkins Won An Academy Award For Spending 16 Minutes On Film
So while poor Peter O’Toole worked his heart and soul out for his acting without any recognition from the Academy for his skill, Anthony Hopkins pretty well just eased into his Oscar.
When Anthony Hopkins won the Academy Award for best actor in 1991 for his portrayal of psychotic killer Hannibal Lector in The Silence of The Lambs, it was one of the shortest lead performances ever to win an Oscar. The total time Hopkins spent on film was only 16 minutes, or less than 14% of the films duration. In comparison, his co star, and fellow Oscar winner for the same film, Jodie Foster, was present in most of the movies scenes. Hopkins role was so powerful and convincing it cemented his place as one of the great actors in history, and it also ended Hopkins relationship with Martha Stewart.
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7. An X Rated Movie Has Won An Oscar
Mainstream movies are not the domain of X rated films, even though they have been around for a very long time. In all honesty, it’s the internet these days that has taken the industry to new heights, or is it lows? But when more and more pornographic movies started to be made, they were taken a little seriously. In fact, they were taken so seriously that one movie won not just one Oscar, but three. It also had a few big name actors, and it didn’t ruin their careers either. Both Jon Voight (Angeline Jolie’s father) and Dustin Hoffman were in the movie. So it seems that Sylvester Stallone and Jackie Chan aren’t the only A listers that have appeared in real porn movies.
Midnight Cowboy won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Writing at the 1970 Oscars. It also had nominations in Best Actor in a Leading Role for both John Voight and Dustin Hoffman, Best Supporting Actress for Sylvia Miles, and Best Film Editing.
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8. The Godfather Part II Is The Only Sequel To Win At The Academy Awards
If you aren’t a fan of the Godfather series, chances are you haven’t seen the movies yet. They are spectacular for their schemes, story lines and brutality, all while maintaining a sense of affection for Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino. But as good as the first movie was, it was the second that made history at the Oscars.
The Godfather part 2 is the only sequel to win best picture at the Academy Awards. To top it off Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro are the only 2 actors to win an Oscar for playing the same character, Vitto Corleone in the Godfather part 1 and 2 respectively.
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9. Oscar Measurements
That leaves only one more thing to reveal in our list of cool Oscars facts. What are the dimensions of the gold statue?
Lets face it. Nearly everyone reading this will have no chance of ever getting a hold of one, let alone winning an Oscar. But I will admit, if I can’t get my hands onto one I sure would like to know what their measurements are.
An Oscar weighs 3kg (6.6lb) and stands 34 cm (13.3 inches) tall. It really is a lot bigger than I thought.
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