So you’ve seen the movies, entered the office pool, loaded up on popcorn and are set for an evening with Oscar.
But how well do you actually know the golden guy?
Here’s a quick baker’s dozen questions on Academy Award trivia.
1. Only two people have ever won best-acting honors for a performance in a foreign-language film. Name them.
2. The 1968 Academy Awards saw the only tie vote for best actress in Oscar history. Name the actresses and their films.
3. Only two people have won Oscars for performances as the same character. Name them.
4. Who is the oldest performer to win an acting Oscar?
5. Only three films have swept all five major Oscars (best picture, director, screenplay, actor and actress). What are they?
6. Who is the only person nominated for best film (as the producer), director, actor and writer in the same year?
7. Who has won the most individual Oscars?
8. From 1978 to 1981, four different women with the initials “M.S.” won best- supporting Oscars. Name them.
9. This nephew of an Oscar-winning composer was nominated 15 times for his soundtrack work before winning on his 16th try.
10. Only two men have ever won back-to-back best-actor Oscars. Who are they?
11. Which movie won the most Oscars without being named best picture?
12. Name the three films tied for the most Oscar wins with 11 apiece.
13. Only three women have been nominated for best director. Who are they?
Answers
1. Roberto Benigni was named best actor in 1998 for his role in “Life is Beautiful.” Fellow Italian Sophia Loren won the best-actress Oscar in 1961 for “Two Women.” In a nice touch, Loren presented Benigni his Oscar the year he won.
2. Katharine Hepburn (“The Lion in Winter”) and Barbra Streisand (“Funny Girl”) tied for best actress.
3. Marlon Brando (“The Godfather,” 1972) and Robert De Niro (“The Godfather II,” 1974) won Oscars for portraying Don Corleone.
4. Jessica Tandy, 80, for 1989’s “Driving Miss Daisy.”
5. “It Happened One Night,” 1934; “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” 1975; “Silence of the Lambs,” 1991.
6. Warren Beatty, twice. “Heaven Can Wait” in 1978 and “Reds” in 1981.
7. Walt Disney, with 26 – six awarded posthumously.
8. Maggie Smith, Meryl Streep, Mary Steenbergen, Maureen Stapleton.
9. Randy Newman finally won in 2002 for “If I Didn’t Have You” from “Monsters Inc.”
10. Spencer Tracy won in 1937-1938 for “Captains Courageous” and “Boys Town.” Tom Hanks won in 1993-1994 for “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump.”
11. “Cabaret” in 1972 with eight.
12. “Ben-Hur,” 1959; “Titanic,” 1997; “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” 2003.
13. Lina Wertmuller for “Seven Beauties” (1976), Jane Campion for “The Piano” (1993), and Sofia Coppola for “Lost in Translation” (2004.)
Sources: “Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards,” “Behind the Oscar: The Secret History of the Academy Awards,” Internet.
