By Jim O’Neal
The 89th Academy Awards are set for Sunday:
►Three films won 11 Oscars: Ben Hur (1959), Titanic (1997) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
►Three films had 14 nominations: All About Eve (1950), Titanic and La La Land (2016).
►Cabaret (1972) won eight Oscars … but not Best Picture.
►Katharine Hepburn has the most Best Actress Oscars … four (yes, more than Meryl Streep).
►Henry Fonda is the oldest actor (76) to win an Oscar for Lead Role in On Golden Pond (1981).
►John Ford won four Oscars for Best Director … The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941) and The Quiet Man (1952).
►Peter Finch won Best Actor posthumously for Network (1976).
►Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor posthumously for The Dark Knight (2008).
►Peter O’Toole was nominated for Best Actor and lost eight times.
►Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland are the only sisters to each win an Academy Award for Best Actress.
►Walt Disney won 22 competitive Oscars and four Honorary.
►Hattie McDaniel was the first African-American to win an Oscar, for her Supporting Role in Gone With the Wind (1939).
►Midnight Cowboy (1969) is the only X-rated movie to win Best Picture.
►Gone With the Wind (1939) is the first color movie to win Best Picture.
►Cate Blanchett won an Oscar playing real-life Oscar-winner Kate Hepburn in Aviator (2004).
►Laurence Olivier is the only person to direct himself in winning an acting Oscar, for Hamlet (1948).
►Barry Fitzgerald was nominated twice for the same role in Going My Way (1944) … Best Actor and Best Supporting (won). The rules were changed to avoid this in the future.
►The most nominations (11) with zero Oscars … The Turning Point (1977) and The Color Purple (1985).
►Halle Berry is the only African-American to win Best Actress, for Monster’s Ball (2001).
►George Bernard Shaw is the first person to win an Oscar and a Nobel Prize (Bob Dylan matched this feat last year).
►Timothy Hutton is the youngest (20) to win Supporting Actor, for Ordinary People (1980).
►Tatum O’Neal is the youngest (10) Supporting Actress, for Paper Moon (1973).
Best of luck to the nominees.
Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].