Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

Mister Tee wrote:

FilmFan720 wrote:

Big Magilla wrote: Had he been, who would be the record holder now? I'm drawing a blank.

Donald Sutherland, Jeff Daniels, John Goodman, and Kevin Bacon each have 4... Martin Sheen has 5 if you count his narrator role in JFK.

What's Sutherland's 4th? I only come up with MASH, Ordinary People and JFK.

You’re right. I counted Cold Mountain by mistake...always think it slipped through

FilmFan720 wrote:

Big Magilla wrote: Had he been, who would be the record holder now? I'm drawing a blank.

Donald Sutherland, Jeff Daniels, John Goodman, and Kevin Bacon each have 4... Martin Sheen has 5 if you count his narrator role in JFK.

What's Sutherland's 4th? I only come up with MASH, Ordinary People and JFK.

Big Magilla wrote:Stuhlbarg and Streep are tied with the most appearances among living actors - 7 each. Stuhlbarg is the answer to the original question. Wikipedia doesn't go below 7. Fourteen others, of whom Wallis Clark is the only one without an Oscar nod, all in uncredited appearances, were in 7.

De Niro has 10

Big Magilla wrote: Had he been, who would be the record holder now? I'm drawing a blank.

Jeff Daniels and Kevin Bacon each have 4... Martin Sheen has 5 if you count his narrator role in JFK.

Edited to take out John Goodman and Donald Sutherland because I can't do math. They each have 3

Thanks for providing her name; I'd always regretted I hadn't written it down or committed it to memory.

Looking at her (unbelievable) list of credits -- though the majority of her best picture nominees came from that pre-1944 period, she held her own afterward, all the way up to Judgment at Nuremberg. And her other credits are nothing to sniff at, either. I didn't stop to do a count, but, just eyeballing, I bet I've seen 100 or more movies she's in, and as many as half were Oscar-nominated in lower categories. Truly a remarkable resume.

I always try to do these things in my head - it's better for keeping the mind active to ward off encroaching senility.

That said, I knew who you meant by "glorified extra" but I couldn't remember her name so I researched it.

That answer and a few more can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_a ... rd_winners

Bess Flowers was in 23. Ward Bond was in 13 (I missed The Maltese Falcon in my manual research).

Stuhlbarg and Streep are tied with the most appearances among living actors - 7 each. Stuhlbarg is the answer to the original question. Wikipedia doesn't go below 7. Fourteen others, of whom Wallis Clark is the only one without an Oscar nod, all in uncredited appearances, were in 7.

I have no idea how you'd research this -- it'd need someone with greater Googling skills than I -- but I know (from something I read a while ago at Awards Worthy) that there's some woman, a glorified extra, who was in something like 20 or more best picture nominees back in the early years (largely early 30s, I believe).

She would likely be the technically correct answer to the question, though Ward Bond is obviously a better one for non-geeks, since he was a prominent part of his films (if not necessarily a memorable one).

Any answer to this question is likely to center around those early years (1928-43) or the past 10, since having so many best picture nominees gives one a leg up. Even Stuhlbarg might have only had four under the 1944-2008 regime -- A Serious Man, The Post and Call Me By Your Name likely wouldn't have made the cut in a year of five.

It's doubtful that anyone will ever equal Ward Bond's record of 12 Best Picture nominees including 3 winners, but with the possible exception of The Quiet Man, none of his performances in those films were Oscar worthy.

Stuhlbarg is clearly the record holder for still living, still working actors with the most Best Picture nominees to his credit yet to receive an Oscar nomination, although he was Oscar worthy himself in just two of them, A Serious Man and Call Me by Your Name. He really should have been nominated for the latter. Had he been, who would be the record holder now? I'm drawing a blank.

anonymous1980 wrote:I suppose this is a good place as any to find out the answer to this bit of trivia that's been in my head:

Which currently living and active actor has been in the most number of Best Picture nominees but has yet to earn an acting nomination for themselves?

I've dug around and currently the champion based solely on my very brief research is Michael Stuhlbarg. He's been in SEVEN Best Picture nominees: A Serious Man, Hugo, Lincoln, Arrival, Call Me By Your Name, The Post and The Shape of Water. That is pretty amazing considering he's only been in 25 or so films so nearly 1/3 of his film resume are Best Picture nominees.

Is there anyone who can beat him?

Probably no one living but there would be a couple of dead actors who may match or better it.

Not that I really need to add this because I'm sure everybody is aware of it but John Cazale only had 5 films appearances (The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2, Dog Day Afternoon, The Conversation & The Deer Hunter - what a line-up!) for which he received zero nominations but all those films were nominated for best picture (two winning) and all five a bona-fide classics more than 40 years later. And he was most definitely robbed of nominations for The Godfather Part 2 & Dog Day Afternoon.

I suppose this is a good place as any to find out the answer to this bit of trivia that's been in my head:

Which currently living and active actor has been in the most number of Best Picture nominees but has yet to earn an acting nomination for themselves?

I've dug around and currently the champion based solely on my very brief research is Michael Stuhlbarg. He's been in SEVEN Best Picture nominees: A Serious Man, Hugo, Lincoln, Arrival, Call Me By Your Name, The Post and The Shape of Water. That is pretty amazing considering he's only been in 25 or so films so nearly 1/3 of his film resume are Best Picture nominees.

Is there anyone who can beat him?

Big Magilla wrote:Rance Howard, anyone?

1) I had no idea who he was; never heard him

2) As you note, he's an asterisk, since his offspring won as director, not actor

3) Since his on-screen time is about 30 seconds, with maybe 25 words, and he's not among the 18 actors listed among the opening credits, I'd say it pushes the definition of the word "featured". But, sure.

I know this about the opening credits because, reading so much about how the film was made, I felt pushed to watch it again tonight, for the first time in about a decade. It puts so many other movies to shame. (Though reading the book -- which I recommend -- leaves one in doubt about who is most responsible for its greatness. Polanski and Evans had a lot more to do with the final result than I ever would have guessed.)

Rance Howard, anyone?

Harry and FilmFan have (slyly) shown they know the film I'm referencing. Magilla, you're going to have to explain what you're thinking of -- if you're on the same page as the rest of us, I don't see who your third person is.

I came up with this piece of trivia from a combination of reading a new book (The Big Goodbye) about the making of the film in question, and, of course, the outcome of this year's Oscars.

My initial focus was qualification number 3, but I decided to look further into number 2. I found that:

a) there have been a few other films whose leading actor/actress didn't take home Oscars but both came back for subsequent wins: Rebecca (Olivier/Fontaine), Casablanca (Bogart/Bergman), The Yearling (Peck/Wyman), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Newman/Taylor)...

b) ...and a few who qualify with an asterisk: Bonnie & Clyde (Beatty/Dunaway -- though Beatty's win was in directing); and both The Apartment (Lemmon/MacLaine) and Sunday Bloody Sunday (Finch/Jackson) -- in each case, one actor had already won an Oscar at the time of this loss, but each did come back to win a subsequent Oscar (in fact, on the same night)

however...

c) in none of those cases did their director come back to win on another occasion (one -- Schlesinger -- had won previously, and two -- Curtiz/Wilder -- won for the film in question).

So, our film is the only one in 90 years of Academy history to fit my second qualification. Any ideas on a film that might match it one day?

Also, a variation on qualification 3: think of a film that got multiple acting nominations -- two of them parents of a subsequent Oscar winner, and one the offspring of a subsequent winner. What are the odds of that?

If it's the one I'm thinking about, it featured three actors whose children subsequently won Oscars although one of the children of one of the actors, though also an actor, won for something other than acting.

Mister Tee wrote:Okay, let's see if I've made this too easy:

Name a film that 1) won an Oscar itself; 2) had its two leading actors and director subsequently win Oscars (though not for this film); and 3) featured two actors whose children subsequently won Oscars.

Forget it Tee...