Random Oscar Trivia: Earliest years with all living nominees
Monday, June 18, 2018 at 8:51AM This is a weird potentially morbid trivia list for you coming for no reason whatsoever -or perhaps my birthday? Uff getting older is thumbs down -- but we follow our trivia instincts wherever they take us. Here are the oldest years in each category wherein all the nominees are still living (excluding categories where generally multiple people are nominated for each film, like say Best Picture or Best Makeup)
Earliest Best Actress Race Where All Women Are Still With Us
1971
Julie Christie, McCabe & Mrs Miller
Jane Fonda, Klute ★
Glenda Jackson, Sunday Bloody Sunday
Vanessa Redgrave, Mary Queen of Scots
Janet Suzman, Nicholas and Alexandra
Janet Suzman and Julie Christie appear to have retired now... but both within the past handful of years so maybe it won't stick. The others are still very active of course with Glenda Jackson just finishing the Triple Crown resorting in a big trivia update on our part.
Earliest Best Supporting Actress Race Where all the Women Are Still Us
1975
Ronee Blakley, Nashville
Lee Grant, Shampoo ★
Sylvia Miles, Farewell My Lovely
Lily Tomlin, Nashville
Brenda Vaccaro, Once is Not Enough
All of these actresses have retired except for Lily Tomlin and Brenda Vaccaro. Tomlin co-stars in Grace & Frankie and Vaccaro had a recurring role on Netflix's shortlived Gypsy last year.
And the reason both actress races are by far the earliest races to feature still-living nominees is because the nominees in those fields tend to be much younger than in other Oscar fields. We've discussed it many times in the age disparities of male and female players in Hollywood.
Earliest Best Director Race Where All the Men Are Still With Us
1980
David Lynch, The Elephant Man
Roman Polanski, Tess
Robert Redford, Ordinary People ★
Richard Rush, The Stunt Man
Martin Scorsese, Raging Bull
Rush retired from directing in the 90s but the others are still getting behind the camera. Though it should be noted that Redford has been moving back in front of it instead of directing these past few years. Next up from this field of men? Redford stars in Old Man and the Gun and Scorsese is in post-production (which generally takes him a long time) on The Irishman.
Earliest Best Actor Race Where All the Men Are Still With Us
1983
Michael Caine, Educating Rita
Tom Conti, Reuben Reuben
Tom Courtenay, The Dresser
Robert Duvall, Tender Mercies ★
Albert Finney, The Dresser
Finney appears to have retired about six years ago but the others are still acting.
Earliest Foreign Film Race Where all the Directors Are Still With Us
Yes we're aware that it's technically the country which is nominated but we've always viewed it as the director, too
1985
Agnieszka Holland, Angry Harvest (West Germany)
Emir Kusturica, When Father Was Away on Business (Yugoslavia)
Luis Puenzo, The Official Story (Argentina) ★
Coline Serreau, Three Men and a Cradle (France)
István Szabo, Colonel Redl (Hungary)
Szabo and Holland both directed more than one Foreign Film nominee. Szabo had four nominated films (!) in the 1980s (Confidence, Mephisto, Colonel Redl, Hanussen) winning once, and Holland two during her career (Angry Harvest in '85 and eventually In Darkness in 2011) with an additional nomination for writing Europa Europa (1991), a huge arthouse hit in its day and Golden Globe winner in their parallel category, but which was not submitted to the foreign film category for some reason.
Puenzo won the category and was also nominated that year for Screenplay. 1985 was a big year for the foreign film category with a lot of success at the US arthouse box office for these films.
Earliest Best Original Score Race Where all the Men Are Still With Us
1987
David Byrne, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Cong Su, The Last Emperor ★
George Fenton & Jonas Gwangwa, Cry Freedom
Ennio Morricone, The Untouchables
John Williams, Empire of the Sun
John Williams, The Witches of Eastwick
Earliest Best Film Editing Race Where All the People Are Still With Us
1989
Noëlle Boisson, The Bear
David Brenner and Joe Hutshing, Born on the Fourth of July ★
Steve Rosenblum, Glory
William Steinkamp, The Fabulous Baker Boys
Mark Warner, Driving Miss Daisy
Interesting year for Best Editing since only 2 of the 5 nominees were from a Best Picture contender. That's unusual.
Earliest Best Supporting Actor Race Where All the Men Are Still With Us
1990
Bruce Davison, Longtime Companion
Andy Garcia, The Godfather Part III
Graham Greene, Dances With Wolves
Al Pacino, Dick Tracy
Joe Pesci, Goodfellas ★
Earliest Best Costume Design Race Where All the Nominees Are Still With Us
1990
Milena Canonero, Dick Tracy
Gloria Gresham, Avalon
Maurizio Millenotti, Hamlet
Franca Squarciapino, Cyrano de Bergerac ★
Elsa Zamparelli, Dances With Wolves
Isn't that a strange coincidence -- it's 80% Italian last names (though Zamparelli wasn't Italian). Canonero and Millenotti are still working but the others have retired (at least from cinema).
Earliest Best Cinematography Field Where All the Nominees Are Still With Us
1992
Stephen H Burum, Hoffa
Jack N Green, Unforgiven
Robert Fraisse, The Lover
Tony Pierce-Roberts, Howards End
Phillipe Rousselot, A River Runs Through It ★
None of these men were ever nominated again in the category (though Pierce-Roberts and Rousselot had been nominated previously)
As detailed in a post last year, 1992 is the earliest Oscar year in which all twenty of the acting nominees are still alive.
Reader Comments (28)
What a fun little piece, Nathaniel! Thanks!
Fantastic, I dore you Blog Nathaniel
"Getting older is thumbs down" - True
Who was the frontrunner in '75? Tomlin, maybe? Why everyone -hey, Susan- looks so surprised with Lee Grant winning?
"Isn't that a strange coincidence -- it's 80% Italian last names" Not at all. When it comes to beauty, italians do it better (among other things).
Fascinating!! Love these trivia posts.
That Best Actress lineup of '71 was a great one. I didn't particularly care for Nicholas and Alexandra as an overall film, it was rather stodgy, but Janet Suzman was excellent in the lead. The other four ladies were typically exceptional but in this case the Academy chose correctly. Klute is one of Jane Fonda's finest performances.
Now I can't stop thinking about that Best Costume Design line-up. They're all excellent. Do you have a favorite race in the costumes department?
if only janet suzman had stayed home with glenda, julie and vanessa - it would have been
amusing to see the winner as the sole nominee attending
It looks like they put Sarandon on camera by mistake and she realizes it during the presentation—I think her OTT reaction is her playing up the silliness.
The alternative to getting older is death. So suck up the sadness you have for not being a young thing anymore. Bette Davis said aging isn't for sissies. Listen to your cinematic mother and stop being a sissy.
1985
Agnieszka Holland, Angry Harvest (West Germany)
Emir Kusturica, When Father Was Away on Business (Yugoslavia)
Luis Puenzo, The Official Story (Argentina) ★
Coline Serreau, Three Men and a Cradle (France)
István Szabo, Colonel Redl (Hungary)
The directors may still be alive, but West Germany and Yugoslavia no longer exist.
Lee Grant had probably moved into the "Overdue" category, since she had been first nominated 20 years previously. Really good list actual character actresses, though.
Nathaniel, you must have the most amazing EXCEL report on the Oscars somewhere!
Thinking of that Oscar nomination for Vacarro always makes me smile. What a fun character to play.
Years with every acting nominee alive (with notes of "danger" for everyone over 70):
1992 (Danger: Al Pacino (x2), Clint Eastwood, Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, Jack Nicholson, Joan Plowright, Vanessa Redgrave)
2000 (Danger: Ellen Burstyn, Albert Finney, Judi Dench)
2001 (Danger: Tom Wilkinson, Judi Dench, Ben Kingsley, Ian McKellan, Jon Voight, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith)
2003 (Danger: Ben Kingsley, Diane Keaton)
2004 (Danger: Morgan Freeman, Alan Alda)
2009 (Danger: Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer)
2010 (Danger: Jacki Weaver)
2011 (Danger: Glenn Close, Christopher Plummer, Nick Nolte, Max Von Sydow)
2013 (Danger: Bruce Dern, Judi Dench, June Squibb)
2014 (Danger: Robert Duvall)
2015 (Danger: Charlotte Rampling)
2016 (Ship out of Danger, enters turbulent waters on June 22, 2019)
2017 (Danger: Richard Jenkins, Christopher Plummer)
Tom Conti hasn't retired, he was in last year's "Paddington 2", and he is a regular on the British stage.
I enjoy this kind of trivia, thanks for the lists! I was inspired to look up the relevant years for screenwriting nominees (and I know you wanted to avoid categories with collaborating nominees, but as a fan of film writing I couldn't help myself). As best as I can tell from Wikipedia and IMDb, the earliest year in which all the original screenplay nominees are still alive is 1984:
WINNER: Places in the Heart (Robert Benton)
Beverly Hills Cop (Daniel Petrie Jr. (screenplay and story) & Danilo Bach (story))
Broadway Danny Rose (Woody Allen)
El Norte (Gregory Nava & Anna Thomas)
Splash (Bruce Jay Friedman (screenplay and screen story), Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (screenplay) & Brian Grazer (story))
And for adapted screenplay nominees, 1988:
WINNER: Dangerous Liaisons (Christopher Hampton)
The Accidental Tourist (Frank Galati & Lawrence Kasdan)
Gorillas in the Mist (Anna Hamilton Phelan (story/screenplay) & Tab Murphy (story))
Little Dorrit (Christine Edzard)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Jean-Claude Carrière & Philip Kaufman)
Leaving who's active & who's retired as an exercise for the committed trivia buff. Thanks again!
"With notes of danger for everyone over 70" ... please have several seats.
Philip H.: Not like that! In the sense of "don't be surprised if they pass soon." Jeremy Renner? That would be a surprise. Clint Eastwood? Not so much.
That foreign language film presentation in 1985 is so strange. You get the star of the eventual winner? It bugs when they do that for below the line categories (usually costume design, oddly) but that one seems particularly surprising since the film was the frontrunner and that just seems mean to the others (or to her if the Argentinian film lost).
Glenn Dunks, that would be a fascinating topic for a post -- reminds me of Dolly Parton presenting a Grammy to Whitney Houston for "I Will Always Love You".
With the Wifi Key View Free Download app you can access to all the passwords of the wifi networks.
Ennio Morricone may be drinking from the same well as Paul Rudd and Alfre Woodard.
"Shampoo" is really a treasure - I've been catching up on Hal Ashby lately. "Shampoo" and "Being There" are gems that are underseen today.
Is "Tender Mercies" worth checking out?
Rebecca: Yes, Tender Mercies is well worth it. Excellent performances, a very good story, beautiful direction, and some fine country songs!
Nathaniel: Thanks for this post. With this and the triple crown, you have been rocking the trivia recently! I love it!
Seeing Madeline Kahn presenting the Supporting Actress Oscar makes me sad, again, that she never won.
@Glenn: yeah, sometimes the presenters act like spoilers :)
Especially for Foreign Film:
1998: Sophia Loren presents the Oscar to Roberto Benigni
1999: Antonio Banderas & Penélope Cruz present to Pedro Almodovar
Glenn/Charlie
What you say is true but then there was also 1987 when Candice Bergen (w/Jacqueline Bisset) had to present the award to Babette's Feast instead of her husband Louis Malle's Au Revoir Les Enfants, which had been the putative front runner
Ken S. -- You're mistaken. Faye Dunaway and James Garner were the presenters in 87. Bergen and Bisset presented the award to Pelle (sadly not to Mujeres).
Mary Tyler Moore presented the Tony for Best Musical to Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Sutton Foster was thoroughly excited. So cool.
Woops
This is great - thanks Nathaniel ! Surprising how 'casual' they were dressed and reacted to the win in the 70's - and look at beautiful Nicole Kidman (sorry to say but she really needs to stop freezing her face with botox - I want to see her face (re-)act again !!) - Joe Pesci whaaaat - I thought this would be "the" speech ...