Who was the first Australian to win two Oscars?
Australia has been providing Hollywood with a steady stream of actors and filmmakers for decades, many of whom have gone on to reach the top of the industry and win Oscars.
While it’s not a requirement, history has shown that it certainly helps an Antipodean performer cut their teeth on one of the nation’s two biggest soap operas before jumping to America. Based entirely on the list of names to have appeared on one or both, Neighbours and Home and Away have become a pair of cinema’s most fertile proving grounds.
Margot Robbie, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Chris Hemsworth, Heath Ledger, and Naomi Watts are just a very small sampling of the stars who have plied their trade on Australia’s small screen staples before upping sticks and heading Stateside. Many of them have been nominated for at least one Academy Award, and more than a few of them have at least one Oscar, taking pride of place in their trophy cabinet.
The country had its first two-time Oscar winner by the end of the 1950s after costume designer Orry-Kelly was rewarded for his efforts suiting and booting the stars of Vincente Minnelli’s An American in Paris and George Cukor’s Les Girls, adding a third to his collection by the end of the decade thanks to Billy Wilder’s classic Some Like It Hot.
The second Australian to win multiple Oscars is also the native to have won the most overall, and the first pair of victories came in the same year. Catherine Martin completed a double whammy when she won gongs for ‘Best Production Design’ and ‘Best Costume Design’ for Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! in 2001, replicating the exact same feat when adding her third and fourth for the filmmaker’s The Great Gatsby.
Kirk Baxter was the first Australian to scoop back-to-back Oscars when his work with David Fincher on The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo won him the ‘Best Film Editing’ prizes in 2010 and 2011, while Cate Blanchett is the only Aussie actor to have two Oscars to her name after following up her ‘Best Supporting Actress’ win for The Aviator with a ‘Best Actress’ trophy for Blue Jasmine.
Who was the first Australian to win an Oscar?
It wasn’t until the 15th edition of the Oscars that an Australian etched their name into the history books, with Ken G Hall claiming the nation’s first Academy Award when his feature-length newsreel Kokoda Front Line! was named the winner of ‘Best Documentary’ in 1942.
One of the most important figures in the history of the Australian film industry, it was fitting that Hall’s legacy will forever be intertwined with his homeland’s first prize at the biggest awards ceremony on the industry calendar.
…and who was the first Australian actor to win an Oscar?
The first Australian actor to win a competitive acting Oscar also set another record in doing so, even if it was a tragic one. His screen time may have been fairly limited, but 33 minutes was all Peter Finch needed to be named ‘Best Actor’ for his tour-de-force in Sidney Lumet’s scathing satire Network.
Of course, the English-born Finch was also the first actor to receive an Oscar posthumously, having passed away in January 1977 at the age of 60, a little over two months before he became Australia’s first on-camera victor.
