Youngest Oscar Nominees & Winners

[anonymous1980]

Oh, God. If I'm right, then if Miley Cyrus gets an Original Song nomination, SHE would be the youngest non-acting Oscar nominee. Oh, the horror!

[OscarGuy]

Well, that's all I have to go by. And I don't doubt you're right. I just have no other way to get the information.

[anonymous1980]

I thinks IMDb is inaccurate in listing down that Oscar-nominee credit for a Richard Elson in the IMDb. I googled his name and this website came up: http://www.chezschwartzfilm.com/crew.html

Clearly, the Richard Elson pictured there is WAY OLDER than 30 years old and definitely wasn't 14 back in 1993. Besides, I think if a 14 year old DID get nominated for an Oscar for Documentary Short Subject, it'd be news and we'd remember it.

[Big Magilla]

Oldest, non-Acting Non-Competitive Winners (age listed is as of first nomination):

1. Robert Boyle, Honorary Award, 98 years, 137 days
2. Joseph Walker, Sawyer Award, 89 years, 219 days
3. Lee De Forest, Honorary Award, 86 years, 223 days
4. Myrna Loy, Honorary Award, 85 years, 235 days
5. Ernest Lehman, Honorary Award, 85 years, 108 days
6. King Vidor, Honorary Award, 85 years, 61 days
7. William N. Selig, Honorary Award, 84 years, 7 days
8. Groucho Marx, Honorary Award, 83 years, 183 days
9. John O. Aalberg, Sawyer Award/Bonner Medal, 83 years, 13 days
10. Ralph Bellamy, Honorary Award, 82 years, 285 days

I think this should simply be called Oldest Non-Competitive Winners to avoid confusion as three of them (Myrna Loy, Groucho Marx and Ralph Bellamy) were most certainly actors.

[jack]

Verified here:

http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_a....ts.html

I believe you.

Interesting page you linked us all to, though, Wes.

[OscarGuy]

Verified here:

http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_a....ts.html

[jack]

He was actually 24 years, 44 days old which puts him outside the range of the top 10.

I thought he was younger. I'm sure I read somewhere he was only 21.

[OscarGuy]

He was actually 24 years, 44 days old which puts him outside the range of the top 10.

[jack]

You forgot John Singleton. I think he was 21 when nominated for Best Director and Original Screenplay.

[OscarGuy]

Now, this is based on data collected from imdb and a little from Academy Archives. Some data may have been listed as birth date but been actually a death date and incorrectly labeled. The time it would take me to figure out and validate all of them is awful, but for the most part, this data is verified enough to be accurate (some within a day or two in either direction).

Sadly, there are hundreds of names to which I have no birth or death information...I have some past Oscar nominees living to well over 100 and I'm positive it's not true, but even Academy records are ill-kept on some of these, especially in more minor categories...and even in some major ones with Margaret Avery the most noted example.

And as a frame of reference: The date for Nominations is based on the date nominations were announced. The date for Winners was based on the date the winners were announced.

Looking at some of the Academy's lists, they have different dates than I do for nominations announcements, so that may account for many of the ages being a day or two off.



Edited By OscarGuy on 1230764040

[rain Bard]

Great job, OscarGuy. This was an impressive undertaking and the results are very interesting. (I had no idea there'd been a 14-year old documentarian nominated, for example)

[Okri]

Very cool. I knew Marketa Irglova was young, but I didn't think she was that young, relative to everyone else.

[OscarGuy]

When everyone talks about the youngest nominees and winners, they always refer to the acting categories only. Perhaps that's because that's the only set of categories the Academy tracks (other than directors). But now that I have got my database to the point where I can provide this kind of data (keep in mind that birth dates are not available for every Oscar nominee/winner in history, so it's possible there are omissions), here are some interesting facts:

Youngest, non-Acting nominee (age listed is as of first nomination):

1. Richard Elson, Documentary Short Subject, 14 years, 7 days
2. Barry A Brown, Documentary Featrue, 19 years, 87 days
3. Market Irglova, Original Song, 19 years, 328 days
4. Andre Previn, Music, 21 years, 312 days
5. Stephen A. Seymour, Art Direction (Color), 22 years, 53 days
6. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Directing & Writing, 22 years, 236 days
7. Lionel Newman, Music, 23 years, 32 days
8. Terry Sanders, Documentary & Short Films, 23 years, 54 days
9. Chet Forrest, Song, 23 years 189 days
10. Gene de Paul, Song, 23 years, 236 days

Youngest, non-Acting winners (age listed is as of first nomination):

1. Market Irglova, Original Song, 19 years, 361 days
2. Terry Sanders, Documentary & Short Film, 23 years, 100 days
3. Bob Gardiner, Animated Short Film, 24 years, 20 days
4. Michele Burke, Makeup, 24 years, unknown # of days
5. Irene Cara, Original Song, 25 years, 23 days
6. Sarah Kernochan, Documentary Feature, 25 years, 88 days
7. Ben Affleck, Writing, 25 years, 219 days
8. Robert Hughes, Documentary Feature, 25 years, 260 days
9. Denis Sanders, Documentary & Short Film, 26 years, 68 days
10. James Bernard, Writing, 26 years, 182 days

Oldest, non-Acting nominees (age listed is as of first nomination):

1. Asakazu Nakai, Cinematography, 84 years, 160 days
2. George Bernard Shaw, Writing, 82 years, 194 days
3. Arthur Miller, Writing, 81 years, 118 days
4. Charles Crichton, Directing & Writing, 78 years, 193 days
5. John Sturtevant, Art Direction (Color), 78 years, 53 days
6. Alberto Grimaldi, Best Picture, 77 years, 320 days
7. Samuel Goldwyn Jr, Best Picture, 77 years, 142 days
8. Mario Cecchi Gori, 76 years, unknown # of days
9. Akira Kurosawa, 75 years, 319 days
10. Rudi Fehr, Editing, 74, 214 days

Oldest, non-Acting Non-Competitive Winners (age listed is as of first nomination):

1. Robert Boyle, Honorary Award, 98 years, 137 days
2. Joseph Walker, Sawyer Award, 89 years, 219 days
3. Lee De Forest, Honorary Award, 86 years, 223 days
4. Myrna Loy, Honorary Award, 85 years, 235 days
5. Ernest Lehman, Honorary Award, 85 years, 108 days
6. King Vidor, Honorary Award, 85 years, 61 days
7. William N. Selig, Honorary Award, 84 years, 7 days
8. Groucho Marx, Honorary Award, 83 years, 183 days
9. John O. Aalberg, Sawyer Award/Bonner Medal, 83 years, 13 days
10. Ralph Bellamy, Honorary Award, 82 years, 285 days

Oldest, non-Acting Competitive Winners (age listed is as of first nomination):

1. George Bernard Shaw, Writing, 82 years, 212 days
2. Valles, Costume Design, 74 years, 350 days
3. Joseph Biroc, Cinematography, 72 years, 55 days
4. Kenneth Utt, Best Picture, 70 years, 261 days
5. Simon Schiffrin, Documentary Short, 70 years, unknown # of days
6. William Holmes, Editing, 70 years, unknown # of days
7. Roman Polanski, Directing, 69 years, 217 days
8. Eugen Shuftan, Cinematography, 68 years, 263 days
9. John Carter, Sound, 68 years, 159 days
10. Peter Lamont, Art Direction, 68 years, 131 days