The four actors who won ‘Best Actress’ with their debut roles
Winning an Academy Award in any category is the highlight of any actor’s career, even if there is no shortage of names who have won multiple Oscars. However, landing one of the industry’s most prestigious honours for your first feature film is an achievement as impressive as it is rare, with only four names in history having won the trophy for their debuts.
The first was Shirley Booth, although she was hardly an acting novice at the time. Having made her Broadway debut in 1915, Booth became one of the most renowned stage performers of the era, winning her second Tony Award in 1950 for the play Come Back, Little Sheba.
Two years later and almost 40 years into her career, Booth reprised the role of Lola Delaney – playing the wife of Burt Lancaster’s Doc – and was similarly rewarded with a ‘Best Actress’ Oscar. She would only appear in four more features before never gracing the silver screen again between 1958 and her death in 1992, but history had already been made.
Meanwhile, Julie Andrews had appeared in countless stage plays, musicals, and TV shows before jumping to the cinema, but her arrival couldn’t have gone much better. Winning the ‘Best Actress’ Oscar for the title role in 1964 classic Mary Poppins – one of five wins from 13 nominations in total – Andrews was anointed as an instant superstar, having headlined not just the highest-grossing release of the year but the top-earning Disney movie ever made at the time.
Four years after receiving a Tony nomination for the same role, Barbara Streisand followed in the footsteps of the aforementioned Booth by bringing Fanny Brice to the multiplex in William Wyler’s Funny Girl to become the second actor to win an Oscar for ‘Best Actress’ in their feature film debut having previously played the part on Broadway.
Of course, Streisand was already a household name by that stage, having released ten studio albums, won six Grammys (including ‘Best Musical Theater Album’ for Funny Girl), and scooped a pair of Primetime Emmys before taking her multifaceted talents to the world of film.
The fourth and final actor to win ‘Best Actress’ for their very first film was another history-maker after Marlee Martin became both the first deaf winner of the category and its youngest-ever victor, with romantic drama Children of a Lesser God arriving in cinemas in 1986 when she was only 21 years old. She’s been working consistently ever since, with her last movie role coming in another Oscars favourite after she played Jackie Rossi in 2021’s ‘Best Picture’ winner CODA.
‘Best Actress’ winners with debut roles:
- Shirley Booth (Come Back, Little Sheba, 1952)
- Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins, 1964)
- Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl, 1968)
- Marlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser God, 1986)
