38 Days til Oscar. 38 Year-Old Oscar Winners
Thursday, January 2, 2020 at 1:00PM As we countdown to Oscar we'll try and do daily trivia for you for curiousity, infotainment and merriment. Since today's magic number is 38 and no one has ever been nominated for exactly 38 Oscars, let's talk about actors who won when they were 38 years old. There are only 12 of them. Have any favourite performances from this list?
1930s
Gale Sondergaard, Anthony Adverse (1st supporting actress winner ever and still the only 38 year old actress ever to win Best Supporting Actress)
Spencer Tracy, Boy's Town (2nd consecutive Oscar win)
1940s
Greer Garson, Mrs Miniver
Broderick Crawford, All the King's Men
Greer Garson accepted Vivien Leigh's second Oscar since she wasn't at the ceremony
1950s
Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire (2nd Oscar win)
From Here to Eternity (1953) is one of only 2 Best Picture winners to win both supporting statues. The other is West Side Story (1961)
Frank Sinatra, From Here to Eternity
1960s
Patricia Neal, Hud
1970s
Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1980s
Sally Field, Places in the Heart (2nd Oscar win)
1994 was one of those rare years when most of the acting winners had won previously
1990s
Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump (2nd consecutive Oscar win)
2000s
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
The only 38 year olds in the mix this awards season are extreme Best Actress longshot Sienna Miller (American Woman), and Best Supporting Actress longshot Cho Yeo-Jeong (Parasite) who you already know we're rooting hard for.
If you're 38 please do give yourself a shout-out in the comments!
Reader Comments (17)
My favorite Gale Sondergaard bit of trivia - she was originally cast as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz but dropped out. Hard to think of anyone but Margaret Hamilton in that role.
Lots of performers I love in there but with some of them-Gale Sondergaard, Spencer Tracy, Broderick Crawford and Tom Hanks-I'm not overly fond of the performance they were awarded for this time out.
I LOVE Mrs. Miniver and Greer in it same goes for Hud and Patricia Neal.
I'm not nearly as fond of Streetcar as most everyone else but there is no question that Vivien's work in it is titanic. That would go for Nicholson and Cuckoo's Nest as well.
As far as Sally and Sinatra go they are very good in their respective films but I wouldn't have picked them to win those years.
Which leaves Hoffman and Bardem who are both very worthy winners.
I’m 38!
Happy 38th year PA!
Hathaway and I turn 38 this year.
I'll be 38 in June!
I'm shocked Vivien was only 38 during Streetcar.
Hathaway and I turn 38 this year.
(I ain’t starting none of last year’s shenanigans with Peggy Sue and co.)
"Hannah and Her Sisters" and "The Fighter" won both supporting prizes as well (Wiest/Caine, Leo/Bale).
That run of Vivien Leigh, Frank Sinatra, Patricia Neal and Jack Nicholson is pretty exceptional. All four would be in contentio for my top ten winners in their respective categories.
The Dr Mistery -- there's about 8 films that have done it but only 2 BEST PICTURE WINNERS as noted in the article.
Pedantic corner: Nathaniel, you say "no one has ever been nominated for exactly 38 Oscars", but people like Walt Disney and John Williams have! It's just that they have exceeded the number since! :-)
Weird that I just read through this whole list being surprised by how OLD these people were (Tom Hanks was already 38, which is practically 40, in Forrest Gump?! Nicholson was already 38, which is practically 50, in Cuckoo’s Nest?!), and only remembered at the end that I am, in fact, 38. In my case, of course, 38 is practically 30.
I turned 38 last June, just like Natalie Portman. :)
Spencer Tracy, Boy's Town (2nd consecutive Oscar win)
Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump (2nd consecutive Oscar win)
Crazy. So that means both Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks won back-to-back Oscars for Lead Actor when they were 37 and 38. After Hanks won the second time, I remember reading the Tracy comparisons, but I don't remember anyone pointing out their ages were the same.
Tom Hanks never portrayed Spencer Tracy, but he did play Walt Disney in a movie once, and that many of that guy's 22 Oscars came in consecutive years. I'll just point out that he did win back-to-back Oscars in the Short Subject Cartoons category when he was 37 and 38.
I did a little more research (see below) and I learned that Henry Mancini also won back-to-back Oscars when he was 37 and 38. Barely -- his birthday was a week after each ceremony -- but it counts. He won for Original Song ("Moon River" and "Days of Wine and Roses").
André Previn had a birthday even closer to the ceremonies. He won for Original Score the day he turned 30, and he was still 30 when he won the same award the next year. Then he did it again 5 years later: won for Adapted Score one week after he turned 35 and the day before he turned 36.
Some other back-to-back winners and their ages. I doubt I got them all, but I'm pretty close.
Luise Rainer (Lead Actress): ages 27 and 28
John Ford (Director): 47 and 48
Thomas Little (B/W Art Direction): 55, 56, and 57
Roger Edens (Score): 43, 44, and 45
Joseph L. Mankiewicz (Screenplay & Director): 41 and 42
Franz Waxman (Score): 44 and 45
Alfred Newman (Score): 52 and 53
Edith Head (B/W Costume Design): 53 and 54, then 56 and 57
Johnny Mercer (Song): 52 and 53
Robert Bolt (Adapted Screenplay): 41 and 42
Katharine Hepburn (Lead Actress): 60 and 61
Leonard Rosenman (Score): 51 and 52
Jason Robards (Supporting Actor): 54 and 55
Alan Menken (Song & Score): 42 and 43
Jim Rygiel (Special Effects): 47, 48, and 49
Randall William Cook (Special Effects): 50, 51, and 52
Gustavo Santaolalla (Score): 54 and 55
Kirk Baxter (Editing): 37 and 38, maybe
Angus Wall (Editing): 43 and 44
Emmanuel Lubezki (Cinematography): 49, 50, and 51
Alejandro González Iñárritu (Director): 51 and 52
Kirk Baxter's birthday is not listed in IMDb or Wikipedia. He would also be 37/38 as long as his birthday was after the ceremonies, which is most of the year and therefore more likely than not.
I'm 38. Turned 38 almost a month ago, december 8th.
38 looked a lot older back then.
Yes, I read that afterwards. Sorry, Nathaniel.