Oscar Losers – And the nominees are…
Actors that Never Won
February 28th, 2016: a day that will live in infamy. After years of struggle and loss – a lifetime of being denied what seemed to be his over and over again – Leonardo DiCaprio finally won an academy award.
And the internet lost one its most beloved memes
Yes, when Leo finally walked away with that Oscar gold, it seemed as if good finally triumphed evil. From his debut in television commercials in the early 1990s to his first nominated performance in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, to Titanic and beyond, Leo’s Best Actor award for his performance in The Revenant was the culmination of a lifetime of hard work was rightly rewarded. You can basically think of it as a modern fairy tale. Life, however, isn’t always a fairy tale and sometimes those who deserve recognition simply do not win. Sure, Leo may have finally gotten his time in that glorious golden spotlight, but for every Leo, there’s plenty of others in the business – wonderfully talented people – who left Hollywood without a competitive Oscar to call their own. Although, to be fair, some did manage to snag a Lifetime Achievement Award before their time was up.
So, let’s hear it for all of the deserving losers out there. All of those actors and actresses who put their all into their work and yet somehow the Academy left them hanging. That said, here’s to some of our beloved losers…
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Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate (1962, director John Frankenheimer)
Nominations:
Best Supporting Actress: 1945, Gaslight
Best Supporting Actress: 1946, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Best Supporting Actress: 1962, The Manchurian Candidate
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Burton with Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966, director Mike Nichols)
Nominations:
Best Supporting Actor: 1953, My Cousin Rachel
Best Actor: 1954, The Robe
Best Actor: 1965, Becket
Best Actor: 1966, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Best Actor: 1967, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Best Actor: 1970, Anne of the Thousand Days
Best Actor, 1978, Eqqus
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Monty in A Place in the Sun (1951, director George Stevens)
Nominations:
Best Actor: 1949, The Search
Best Actor: 1952, A Place in the Sun
Best Actor: 1954, From Here to Eternity
Best Supporting Actor: 1962, Judgment at Nuremburg
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Kerr in The King and I (1956, director Walter Lang)
Nominations:
Best Actress, 1950, Edward, My Son
Best Actress: 1954, From Here to Eternity
Best Actress: 1957, The King and I
Best Actress: 1958, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
Best Actress: 1959, Separate Tables
Best Actress: 1961, The Sundowners
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O’Toole In The Lion in Winter (1969, director Anthony Harvey)
Nominations:
Best Actor: 1964, Lawrence of Arabia
Best Actor: 1965, Becket
Best Actor: 1969, The Lion in Winter
Best Actor: 1970, Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Best Actor: 1973, The Ruling Class
Best Actor: 1981, The Stunt Man
Best Actor: 1983, My Favorite Year
Best Actor: 2007, Venus
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Mitchum in The Story of G.I Joe (1945, director William A. Wellman)
Nomination:
Best Supporting Actor: 1946, The Story of G.I Joe
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Ritter In All About Eve (1950, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Nominations:
Best Supporting Actress: 1951, All About Eve
Best Supporting Actress: 1952, The Mating Season
Best Supporting Actress: 1953, With a Song in My Heart
Best Supporting Actress: 1954, Pickup on South Street
Best Supporting Actress: 1960, Pillow Talk
Best Supporting Actress: 1963, Birdman of Alcatraz
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Grant With Ethel Barrymore in None But the Lonely Heart (1944, director Clifford Odets)
Nominations:
Best Actor: 1942, Penny Serenade
Best Actor: 1945, None but the Lonely Heart
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Astaire with Jennifer Jones in Towering Inferno (1974, director Irving Allen)
Nomination:
Best Supporting Actor: 1975, Towering Inferno
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Loy in the studio. Because she was never nominated
Never even nominated. Not even for The Best Years of Our Lives. SMH.
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Minoo Allen for Classic Movie Hub
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there were two actors left out that got nominations and didn’t win-james dean and john garfield.
Edward G. Robinson – so many deserving nominations – well, anyway, so many deserving performances.
To me, the most egregious omission is Glenn Close. She’s largely gone from movies now, and doing quite well on television, but during the mid-Eighties, she was one of the best around. Seriously: Fatal Attraction? Dangerous Liaisons (my personal favorite)? Amazing performances. No Oscar.
Another fun game is, “Wait, _____ has an Oscar, but _______ doesn’t??” That’s especially fun when you look at Best Director. Actors Redford, Costner, Gibson, Eastwood, and Beatty all won Best Director Oscars before Martin Scorcese. (Depressing bonus points if you consider that neither Stanley Kubrick nor Orson Welles ever won Best Director (Screenplay and Visual Effects, respectively, but not the big one))
I’ll give Warren Beatty and Clint Eastwood theirs–Reds is a severely underappreciated epic, and The Unforgiven was one of many excellent Eastwood films. But Redford’s “Ordinary People” over Scorcese for “Raging Bull?” Ummm. That’s kind of a tough one, because Ordinary People is truly an excellent film. But ye gods, Kevin bloody Costner’s new age social studies lesson “Dances with Wolves” over Scorcese for “Goodfellas”? Ridiculous. Nobody has mentioned “Dances with Wolves” in years, and “Goodfellas” appears regularly on Top Ten lists. Oops.
Plus, Cher, Whoopi Goldberg, and Marisa Romeo have acting Oscars they hardly deserve. Yuk.
Hollywood can be very political when it comes to the little golden guy. Denzel Washington won for Training Day, which was a fine, if not Oscar-worthy, performance. But he beat out Russell Crowe for “A Beautiful Mind,” possibly his greatest performance, and really, one for the ages. Why? Because this was when the Oscars were later in the season. Oscar voters made their selections after the BAFTA’s were awarded, and the temperamental Mr. Crowe ended up in a physical altercation with a BAFTA producer who cut him off while Crowe read a poem. I have no doubt this is why he was snubbed here. “A Beautiful Mind” won Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Supporting Actress, but the entire movie hinged on his performance. He was robbed.
Jack Nicholson has three Oscars, but how could he not win for A Few Good Men?
Sometimes, I think the Oscars’ main reason for existence is to give movie geeks like us something to argue about.
I agree with your list, especially Peter O’Toole. We’ll see what horrors await us this year. Thanks for the post.
For me, I’m shocked that Charlie Chaplin never won a Best Director Oscar…
All were deserving of the award, however O’Toole losing for Lawrence Of Arabia was an absolute travesty.
Hard to believe, isn’t it?!?
There were so many who could have won for 1962. And Robert Preston wasn’t even nominated for THE MUSIC MAN.
Richard Burton and Cary Grant were my surprises…well and Leonardo. But as we know, popularity does not equal Academy deservement…well except amongst their circle.
Lansbury’s non-win for 1962 was criminal.