22 days til Oscar - Walt Disney and his nearest rivals (?)
Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 10:30AM by Nathaniel R
Everyone presumably knows that Walt Disney (1901-1966), one of the 20th century's most influential titans, holds the records of most competitive Oscar wins. He amassed a total of 22 Oscars in his career which broke down like so:
- 12 animated shorts
- 6 live action shorts *
- 2 documentary shorts
- 2 documentary features
A few notes on these achievements and Disney's nearest rivals in these categories (and whether or not the ranks might change) after the jump...
It's worth noting here that our modern conceptions of the categories aren't entirely descriptive because the shorts categories have gone through different titles and iteration. Most of the awards Disney won in what is now live action shorts ("best short subject two reel" were actually documentary shorts, which were in the two-reel category because of their length... even though there was also a documentary shorts category. Confusing!).
Dick Van Dyke, Walt Disney, and Julie Andrews at the premiere of MARY POPPINS (1964), Walt's only Best Picture nominee
Now during the studio system in particular department heads and studio executives could amass more nominations than they do now because they stamped their names on everything so the degree to which Disney was responsible for his 22 competitive wins surely varies wildly from short to short. Despite Disney's popularity with Oscar (he also received multiple honorary prizes) he lost the biggest award he was ever nominated for: Best Picture, 1964. That was the year of two blockbuster musicals battling it out for the gold. My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins split the Oscars hogging 13 of them together but My Fair Lady won the top prize. If you watch them today, though, it's Mary Poppins that holds up beautifully; it's an entirely cinematic musical which still soars while My Fair Lady, despite that all-time score of perfection, has leaden feet, anchored to its soundstages. This is not to argue that Mary Poppins is the better musical, but it's 100% the better movie .
Who are Disney's chief rivals to dominance in the categories he won in? Let's investigate.
Fred Quimby with his OscarsMOST WINS FOR ANIMATED SHORT
- Walt Disney (12 from 39 nominations in this category)
- Frederick Quimby (8...from 12 nominations. Seven of the wins are from Tom & Jerry shorts)
- Edward Selzer (4... from 10 nominations in this category)
- [TIE with 3 wins each] Stephen Bosustow (13 nominations in this category), John Hubley (7 nominations), and Nick Park (5 nominations in this category)
Likelihood of this rank changing any time soon? Not so much. No one company dominates anymore and all of the men except for Aardman's Nick Park (who is only 60 but only makes features now) are long dead.
MOST WINS FOR LIVE ACTION SHORT
- Walt Disney (6... but, again, most of these are actually documentary shorts)
- Gordon Hollingshead (5)
- [TIE with 2 wins each] Herbert Moulton, Edmund Reek, Hal Roach, Pete Smith, Robert Youngson, and Jana Sue Memel (the only woman in the top eight)
Likelihood of this rank changing any time soon? Unlikely since this category doesn't have a lot of repeats though it's possible that Jana Sue Memel could break the tie. She hasn't been nominated in 23 years but she's still working and she's the only person still alive from this list and fairly young considering that factoid (she's 62). Fun fact: She won her second Oscar for Leiberman in Love with the actress Christine Lahti. People always forget that Lahti is an Oscar winner but she is. Memel's first win was the charmingly titled comic short Ray's Male Heterosexual Dance Hall (1987) which has an all male cast and stars 4 time Tony winning great Boyd Gaines. You can watch it in a really fuzzy copy on YouTube if you saw desire.
MOST WINS FOR DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
- [TIE - 2 wins each] Walt Disney, Charles E Guggenheim, Robin Lehman, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (pictured above), who is new to these ranks. She's won twice this very decade for Saving Face and Girl in the River, making her both the only woman and the only person of color to win this category twice. She hails from Pakistan.
Likelihood of this rank changing any time soon? Likely! 2 wins does not seem unbeatable not to mention the possibility of some previous winner rallying again to make this a five-way tie. Plus, Obaid-Chinoy is a relatively new filmmaker and is only 40 years old. The other two time winners are either dead or retired.
Robert Epstein at a recent anniversary screening of "The Times of Harvey Milk"MOST WINS FOR DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
- Arthur Cohn (3)
- [TIE with 2 wins each] Jacques Yves-Cousteau, Walt Disney, Barbara Kopple, and Robert Epstein (pictured left)
Likelihood of this rank changing any time soon? Seems possible since all but Disney and Costeau are still alive and working. Cohn is 91 (!!!) and still going though his last nomination and win being for 1999's One Day in September) and Robert Epstein is nominated again this year albeit not in this category; Epstein, 63, is the man behind two unmissably classic gay docs: Common Threads and The Times of Harvey Milk and this year he's nominated for Documentary Short for the end of life medical doc End Game which you can stream currently on Netflix.
Reader Comments (8)
Also Celluloid Closet for Epstein, Wonderful film.
Christine Lahti is marvelous. Where has she been recently?
Girl in the River is gut-wrenching. I hope Obaid-Chinoy keeps making important films about her country.
Ian -- yeah, i love that one too. Pity Oscar overlooked it.
Mary Poppins better than My Fair Lady? No, no, no...
I googled the talented Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and she is white. A pakistani white woman.
My Fair Lady is a way better movie than Mary Poppins. Fact.
Melchiades & Craver -- have y'all watched MY FAIR LADY lately? I loved it as a kid but it is leaden and hopelessly non-cinematic. MARY POPPINS is a blast and holds up. So can't say that I agree with your "facts".
Dr Strangelove was better than both of them!
Paranoid Android: Preach!