The greatest actor to never win an Oscar, according to Robin Williams
Winning an Academy Award might be the pinnacle of acting, but not having one doesn’t mean you can’t be remembered as one of the all-time greats. Not that the debate mattered to Robin Williams, since he had one of his own, but he was indignant that one of his favourites didn’t.
Peter O’Toole and Fred Astaire never claimed a competitive Oscar; Harrison Ford has only been nominated once. Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, and Cary Grant didn’t add one to their trophy cabinets, but they’ll still be remembered for decades to come as indisputable Hollywood icons.
Winning an Oscar doesn’t immediately validate a comedy actor, either, although Williams was again an exception. Jim Carrey was robbed by being left off the shortlist for The Truman Show, and Norbit may have cost Eddie Murphy dearly, but that doesn’t make their dramatic efforts any less impressive.
That said, Williams was in a class of his own. There are generally comic actors, dramatic actors, comic actors who occasionally dabble in drama, and dramatic actors who occasionally dabble in comedy, but he proved himself to be equally adept at both. When he was aiming for the funny bone, he was virtually peerless, but he could switch to pathos and gravitas on a dime and have audiences weeping in the aisles.
They say drama is hard, but comedy is harder, which he made a mockery of by making them look effortless. Despite that, he was aware that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences didn’t typically reward or recognise rib-tickling turns when there were plenty of tear-jerking monologues to consider, which made him cast judgment on a particularly egregious snub.
“The Academy prefers the dramas, even though the comedies are responsible for the success of the movie industry,” he explained. “Academy members may think it’s easy to do comedy. They only gave Charlie Chaplin an Oscar when he was 80 years old. One of my favourite comedians, Peter Sellers, never won an Oscar.”
There would be no Williams without Sellers, never mind the raft of other comics he inspired, and he only landed two acting nominations, although they were both thoroughly deserved. Dr Strangelove and Being There are two titanic turns that showed both sides of the legendary performer; one allowed him to cut loose and embrace the anarchy, while the other was a masterclass in understatement.
Should he have won, though? Probably, but just the once. Looking back, his tour de force in Stanley Kubrick’s farce is ingrained much deeper in the cultural consciousness than Rex Harrison’s triumphant turn in My Fair Lady, even if it’s hard to say that he deserved to win the prize at the second attempt when the trophy went to Kramer vs Kramer‘s Dustin Hoffman.
An honorary gong might have sufficed for his contributions to big-screen comedy, but he didn’t get that, either. Instead, Williams was left to rue the fact that his biggest source of inspiration ended their career as an Oscar-less actor.
