| Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role |
| Presented by | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |
| Country | United States |
| First awarded | 1936 (for performances in films released in 1936) |
| Currently held by | Melissa Leo, The Fighter (2010) |
| Official website | http://www.oscars.org |
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the award has commonly been referred to as the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. While actresses are nominated for this award by Academy members who are actors and actresses themselves, winners are selected by the Academy membership as a whole.
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Throughout the past 75 years, accounting for ties and repeat winners, AMPAS has presented a total of 75 Best Supporting Actress awards to 73 different actresses. Winners of this Academy Award of Merit currently receive the familiar Oscar statuette, depicting a gold-plated knight holding a crusader's sword and standing on a reel of film. Prior to the 16th Academy Awards ceremony (1943), however, they received a plaque. The first recipient was Gale Sondergaard, who was honored at the 9th Academy Awards ceremony (1936) for her performance in Anthony Adverse. The most recent recipient was Melissa Leo, who was honored at the 83rd Academy Awards ceremony (2010) for her performance in The Fighter.
Until the 8th Academy Awards ceremony (1935), nominations for the Best Actress award were intended to include all actresses, whether the performance was in either a leading or supporting role. At the 9th Academy Awards ceremony (1936), however, the Best Supporting Actress category was specifically introduced as a distinct award following complaints that the single Best Actress category necessarily favored leading performers with the most screen time. Nonetheless, May Robson had received a Best Actress nomination (Lady for a Day, 1933) for her performance in a clear supporting role. Under the system currently in place, an actress is nominated for a specific performance in a single film, and such nominations are limited to five per year. Currently, Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, and Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role constitute the four Academy Awards of Merit for acting annually presented by AMPAS.
Following the Academy's practice, the films below are listed by year of their Los Angeles qualifying run, which is usually (but not always) the film's year of release. For example, the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress of 1999 was announced during the award ceremony held in 2000. Winners are listed first in bold, followed by the other nominees. For a list sorted by actress names, please see List of Best Supporting Actress nominees. For a list sorted by film titles, please see List of Best Supporting Actress nominees (films).
| Year | Actor | Film | Role(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1936 (9th) |
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| Gale Sondergaard | Anthony Adverse | Faith Paleologus | |
| Beulah Bondi | The Gorgeous Hussy | Rachel Jackson | |
| Alice Brady | My Man Godfrey | Angelica Bullock | |
| Bonita Granville | These Three | Mary Tilford | |
| Maria Ouspenskaya | Dodsworth | Baroness Von Obersdorf | |
| 1937 (10th) |
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| Alice Brady | In Old Chicago | Molly O'Leary | |
| Andrea Leeds | Stage Door | Kay Hamilton | |
| Anne Shirley | Stella Dallas | Laurel "Lollie" Dallas | |
| Claire Trevor | Dead End | Francey | |
| May Whitty | Night Must Fall | Mrs. Bramson | |
| 1938 (11th) |
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| Fay Bainter | Jezebel | Aunt Belle Massey | |
| Beulah Bondi | Of Human Hearts | Mary Wilkins | |
| Billie Burke | Merrily We Live | Emily Kilbourne | |
| Spring Byington | You Can't Take It with You | Penny Sycamore | |
| Miliza Korjus | The Great Waltz | Carla Donner | |
| 1939 (12th) |
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| Hattie McDaniel | Gone with the Wind | Mammy | |
| Olivia de Havilland | Gone with the Wind | Melanie Hamilton | |
| Geraldine Fitzgerald | Wuthering Heights | Isabella Linton | |
| Edna May Oliver | Drums Along the Mohawk | Sarah McKlennar | |
| Maria Ouspenskaya | Love Affair | Grandmother Janou |
| Year | Actor | Film | Role(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 (83rd) |
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| Melissa Leo | The Fighter | Alice Ward | |
| Amy Adams | The Fighter | Charlene Fleming | |
| Helena Bonham Carter | The King's Speech | Queen Elizabeth | |
| Hailee Steinfeld | True Grit | Mattie Ross | |
| Jacki Weaver | Animal Kingdom | Janine "Smurf" Cody |
| Superlative | Best Actress | Best Supporting Actress | Overall | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actress with most awards | Katharine Hepburn | 4 | Shelley Winters Dianne Wiest |
2 | Katharine Hepburn | 4 |
| Actress with most nominations | Meryl Streep | 13 | Thelma Ritter | 6 | Meryl Streep | 16 |
| Actress with most nominations (without ever winning) |
Deborah Kerr | 6 | Thelma Ritter | 6 | Deborah Kerr Thelma Ritter |
6 |
| Film with most nominations | All About Eve Suddenly, Last Summer The Turning Point Terms of Endearment Thelma & Louise |
2 | Tom Jones | 3 | All About Eve | 4 |
| Oldest winner | Jessica Tandy | 80 | Peggy Ashcroft | 77 | Jessica Tandy | 80 |
| Oldest nominee | Jessica Tandy | 80 | Gloria Stuart | 87 | Gloria Stuart | 87 |
| Youngest winner | Marlee Matlin | 21 | Tatum O'Neal | 10 | Tatum O'Neal | 10 |
| Youngest nominee | Keisha Castle-Hughes | 13 | Tatum O'Neal | 10 | Tatum O'Neal | 10 |
Five women have won both the Best Actress and the Best Supporting Actress awards: Helen Hayes, Ingrid Bergman, Maggie Smith, Meryl Streep, and Jessica Lange.
The only actresses to have won the Best Supporting Actress award twice are Shelley Winters and Dianne Wiest. Winters won in 1959 and 1965 (she was also nominated in 1972, in addition to being nominated in the Best Actress category in 1951); Wiest won in 1986 and 1994 (she was also nominated in 1989).
Thelma Ritter had six nominations in this category, more than any other actress in this category. As she never won the award, she also holds the record for the number of unsuccessful nominations. Ritter holds the record for the most successive nominations: 1950–1953. Glenn Close was nominated three years consecutively (1982–1984).
Actresses with four nominations in this category are Ethel Barrymore, Agnes Moorehead, Lee Grant, Maureen Stapleton, Geraldine Page, and Maggie Smith. All of Moorehead's and Page's nominations were unsuccessful (but Page did win a Best Actress award, in 1986); each of the others have won (with Smith also having previously won a Best Actress award, in 1970).
Those with three nominations are in this category Amy Adams, Anne Revere, Celeste Holm, Claire Trevor, Angela Lansbury, Shelley Winters, Glenn Close, Diane Ladd, Dianne Wiest, Meryl Streep, Frances McDormand, Cate Blanchett, Marisa Tomei, and Gladys Cooper. Lansbury, Close, Ladd, Cooper, Adams and McDormand have never won a Best Supporting Actress award (but McDormand did win a Best Actress award, in 1997).
Hattie McDaniel was the first African American, Miyoshi Umeki the first winner of Asian descent, Rita Moreno the first (and only) Puerto Rican winner and the first Latina, Brenda Fricker the first (and only) Irishwoman, Anna Paquin the first Canadian-born New Zealander, Juliette Binoche the first (and only) Frenchwoman, Catherine Zeta-Jones the first (and only) Welsh winner, Cate Blanchett the first (and only) Australian, and Penélope Cruz the first (and only) Spaniard to win Best Supporting Actress.
Three actresses have received Best Supporting Actress nominations for non-speaking roles: Patty Duke won the award for The Miracle Worker in 1962, Samantha Morton was nominated for Sweet and Lowdown in 1999, and Rinko Kikuchi was nominated for Babel in 2006. Both Morton and Kikuchi performed their roles without speaking a word, while Duke had no dialogue other than grunts and screams.
The earliest nominee in this category who is still alive is Olivia de Havilland (1939), followed by Angela Lansbury (1944). The earliest winner in this category who is still alive is Celeste Holm (1947), followed by Eva Marie Saint (1954). Gloria Stuart, born 1910, is the oldest nominee in this category; she died in 2010. Stuart is also the oldest acting nominee ever (for Titanic, 1997).
The earliest Oscars where all 5 Best Supporting Actress nominations are still alive is at the 48th Academy Awards, while the most recent where all 5 have died is at the 39th Academy Awards.
As of 2011 the earliest Oscars where all 4 acting winners are alive is the 34th Academy Awards, while the most recent where all 4 have died is the 39th Academy Awards.
Beatrice Straight, who won for her role in Network in 1976, had the shortest on-screen role at five minutes and two seconds. Judi Dench, who won for her role as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare In Love in 1998, had the second-shortest on-screen performance at nearly six minutes.
Hermione Baddeley's performance as a supporting actress in Room at the Top (1959), with two minutes and 20 seconds of screen time, is the shortest role to be nominated for an acting Academy Award.
The only actor to win an Oscar for playing a real-life Oscar winner is Cate Blanchett. She won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2004 for playing Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator.
There have been no posthumous nominations for this award.
Four African-American actresses have won the award: Hattie McDaniel, Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Hudson and Mo'Nique.
Hispanic actresses who have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress are: Katy Jurado, the first Mexican actress (1954), Susan Kohner, the first Mexican-American Actress (1959), Rita Moreno, the first Puerto Rican actress and first winner (1961, West Side Story), Norma Aleandro the first Argentine actress (1988), Rosie Perez, the first Puerto Rican-American actress (1993), Adriana Barraza, the second Mexican actress (2006), Penélope Cruz, the first Spanish actress to ever be awarded an Academy Award for Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008).
The only two Mexican-born actresses who have received Best Supporting Actress nominations are Katy Jurado (for Broken Lance, 1954) and Adriana Barraza (for Babel, 2006).
The first (and only) Iranian actress nominated was Shohreh Aghdashloo (for House of Sand and Fog, 2003).
The earliest Oscars where both supporting acting winning are alive is at the 34th Academy Awards. The most recent where both have died is at the 57th Academy Awards
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As the Academy Awards are based in the United States and are centered on the Hollywood film industry, the majority of Academy Award winners have been Americans. Nonetheless, there is significant international presence at the awards, as evidenced by the following list of winners for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
There have been two years in which all four of the top acting Academy Awards were presented to non-Americans (Europeans).
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