Who was the first actor to be nominated for two Oscars in the same year?
Only a handful of actors have been lucky enough to be nominated for an Oscar twice during one ceremony, and if I were them, I’d feel pretty smug about it.
Some work their whole lives to try and secure a nomination, but they ultimately walk away empty-handed, so you’d naturally be handily annoyed if you had to witness someone rack up two nominations in one year, achieving it all in one fell swoop.
The rules have changed over the years as to how many times an actor can be nominated, and what for, because back in 1944, Barry Fitzgerald was nominated in two different categories for the same role. He played Father Fitzgibbon in Going My Way alongside Bing Crosby, but for some reason, he was nominated for both ‘Best Actor’ and ‘Best Supporting Actor’, and surely he couldn’t be both.
While he only won the latter, the Academy ensured that actors could only be nominated in one category per performance from then on, which still left the caveat that if you’ve played different roles in different movies, you could be nominated for all, something that has occurred 12 times since the inception of the accolade in 1929.
Alongside stalwarts like Emma Thompson, Holly Hunter, Cate Blanchett, Al Pacino, Sigourney Weaver, and Jamie Foxx, Scarlett Johansson most recently joined the roster when she was twice nominated for her one-two punch performances in 2019’s Jojo Rabbit and Marriage Story, expanding the circle.
Who was the first two-time Oscar nominee in the same year?
Looking back to 1939, when the Oscars were still in their relative infancy, Fay Bainter was nominated for both her roles in White Banners and Jezebel, where the former saw her earn a ‘Best Actress’ nod, she took home the prize for the latter’s recognition of ‘Best Supporting Actress’.
She made history with an achievement that is rather refreshingly female-dominated, with only Fitzgerald, Pacino, and Foxx standing as the male achievers of this category. Bainter was born in 1893, before cinema was even a thing, but she soon turned to theatre during the early years of her career, where she found herself right at home. Eventually, she made the move to the silver screen, although not until the introduction of sound to the medium.
After her film debut in 1934 with a role in This Side of Heaven, it didn’t take long for her to become a movie star, although her Oscar-nominated roles were only her fifth and sixth onscreen performances, respectively. Clearly, her years of dedication to honing her craft onstage were what she needed to triumph, culminating in her earning two Oscar nominations during the same ceremony.
It would be another few decades until Bainter was nominated again, earning another ‘Best Supporting Actress’ nod for The Children’s Hour, missing out on it to Rita Moreno for West Side Story. However, remaining impressive in her own right, she got to retain her name in record books for her earlier feat, which is something even fewer creatives in the field can claim.
