After being nominated twice as Best Supporting Actress in the previous four years, she was considered the favorite for the 1967 Best Actress Oscar for The Whisperers (1967), with Faye Dunaway cast by the media as her strongest competition. They both lost, to Katharine Hepburn, who rode a wave of sentiment to her second of four Oscars, after the death of her long-time lover and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) co-star, Spencer Tracy.
In 1964, she accepted the Oscar for "Best Director" on behalf of Tony Richardson (her Director for Tom Jones (1963)), who wasn't present at the awards ceremony.
She did not make her first talking picture until she was sixty-one.
She was awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1946 King's Honours List for her services to drama.
Was a Christian Scientist.