Ten People You Didn't Know Won an Oscar

TV & Film

Sep 7

The Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, are the pinnacle of filmmaking. It’s the award that every filmmaker of every category covets. It opens up so many career opportunities if if studios know you can produce films that they can stamp “Academy Award Winner” on the Blu-Ray cover or Netflix description.

If you stand on that stage holding the little gold statuette, it’s proof that either you’ve perfected your craft and all of the blood, sweat and tears has paid off, or Harvey Weinstein has spent millions ensuring that your middling project picks up awards it doesn’t deserve.

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Anyway, while titans of the industry have famously picked up Oscars, (Spielberg, Streep, Brando, Pacino, Nicholson, and so many more) there are people that you’ve definitely heard of that you had no idea won one of the iconic, highly sought after statuettes. In no particular order…

10: Walt Disney

Okay, okay, if you have a even a vague knowledge of the Oscars, you probably know that the man behind the House of Mouse has an Oscar or two… or twenty-six, with four being honorary and twenty-two being competitive out of a staggering fifty-nine nominations. He’s easily the most awarded and nominated person in Oscar history.

9: Steven Wright

The monotone comedian known for his deadpan delivery combined with absurdism doesn’t have a long filmography, but he’s well known as the DJ in Reservoir Dogs and for kids in my generation as the turtle Speed in the animated film The Swan Princess.

He won his Best Live Action Short award in 1988 for the comedy film The Appointments of Dennis Jennings. The short follows the titular character as he tries to connect with a disinterested girlfriend, while having therapy sessions with a not so great psychiatrist. Upon winning the award, Wright quipped “We’re really glad we cut out the other sixty minutes.”

8: Frank Sinatra.

Unlike most musicians who win Oscars, Sinatra actually won his for acting, playing Private Angelo Maggio in the 1953 Best Picture winning From Here to Eternity.

The interesting thing about his win is that there were rumors that he only got the job, and maybe the win, because his Mafia connections pressured the filmmakers to cast Sinatra. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it was the basis of Johnny Fontaine’s arc in The Godfather, where Vito Corleone pressures the movie producer Jack Woltz into giving him a movie role through the… use of a horse’s head. Mafia connections or not, it is a very good performance in a very good movie.

7: Jack Albertson

The name you may not recognize, but you definitely recognize him in the role as the (villainous?) Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Jack Albertson had a long and distinguished career both on the stage and the screen, and it culminated in the Post-WWII film The Subject Was Roses, for which Albertson won Best Supporting Actor in 1968. However, that wasn’t new to him, as he won the Tony award for the same role three years earlier. That film/play may not be very well known in modern times, but he’s certainly achieved film immortality as Grandpa Joe.

6: Burl Ives

Once again you may not recognize the name, but you’ve heard his voice countless times every Christmas season as Sam the Snowman from the old stop-motion Rankin/Bass Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer short and the eponymous song, as well as the December billboard staple “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” from the same film. He was primarily a musician, but he had a very respectable film career, which included his 1958 Oscar win for The Big Country. I admit that I haven’t seen it, but he’ll always be that singing snowman to me.

5: Dr. Seuss

Arguably the most famous and influential children’s author of all time, Dr. Seuss actually has a pair of Oscars to go with his other achievements, not to mention the third film that won an Oscar that he was uncredited for. The first was for Documentary Feature for 1947’s Design For Death, which was a longer version of the training short that US soldiers were shown to get an idea of the Japanese culture as they occupied it after WWII.

Yes, Dr. Seuss, the man who created The Cat in the Hat and The Grinch, won an Oscar for a post-WWII propaganda film. His second in in 1951 for Animated Short, was much more in character, as it was based on one of his original stories, Gerald McBoing-Boing. The third Oscar-winning film was for a propaganda short for the soldiers in Germany after WWII called Hitler Lives, though he received no credit, and did not actually collect a statuette.

4: So Many Musicians

This is cheating a bit for the sake of the article title, but if you look at the list of Best Original Song winners, you’re going to see a ton of names on there that you recognize. Lady Gaga. Eminem. The Beatles. Stevie Wonder. Lionel Ritchie. Isaac Hayes (Chef from South Park). Bruce Springsteen. Bob Dylan. Adele. Billie Eilish… If you’re a musician and want an Oscar, your best bet is to find some movies to write songs for and hope that they achieve critical success. It’s worked out for a lot of big names in the music industry. However, be careful to not beat the creators of South Park for a Best Song Oscar, or you’ll find yourself relentlessly mocked in the show. Phil Collins found that one out the hard way.

3: Nicholas Cage

In the past several years, Cage has become sort of a punchline for appearing in a lot of B-grade schlock to appease the IRS, but if you think of him in that context, you’re undervaluing a really talented actor. Sure he’s done stuff like the universally despised Left Behind film (although, Willie’s Wonderland is a film I could watch over and over again, and have) but he’s been in some really good stuff.

A member of the highly respected Coppola family, Cage has had a deceptively solid career, if you ignore stuff like the Wicker Man remake. That came to a head in 1995, where he won Best Actor for his role as a man who is determined to drink himself to death in Leaving Las Vegas. He’s having something of a career renaissance in the past few years, but he’s had a few roles that people should remember him for, but tend not to.

2: Kobe Bryant

The late, great basketball star has not just won five NBA championships, four NBA MVPs, two Olympic gold medals, but he’s also the only person with all of that, plus an Oscar. He picked up the award for his 2018 animated short Dear Basketball. The film was based on Bryant’s retirement letter from basketball, and follows his journey from childhood to his time in the NBA. The film’s victory was significant not only because it made Byrant the only professional sports player to win an Oscar, but it also gave long time Disney Renaissance animator Glen Keane his first award.

1: Jim Rash

If you had to guess what Dean Pelton from the hit sitcom Community would win an Oscar for, you probably wouldn’t guess a George Clooney tragicomedy. However, that’s what happened in 2011 for the commercially and critically acclaimed film The Descendants, which he co-wrote with Nat Faxon and director Alexander Payne, based on the book of the same name by author Kaui Hart Hemmings. The film stars george Clooney as an attorney who is, to put it lightly, having family troubles. While Rash hasn’t done a ton of writing work since, he will at least always have that Oscar on his shelf.

Throughout the nearly hundred years of the Academy Awards, we’ve seen a wide array of people pick up the award, from Hollywood legends to people who have a red hot moment, then fade. The Academy Awards (ideally) represent the best of the best in filmmaking, and it’s worth taking a look at people who have picked up one of the iconic statuettes whom you may not have known nabbed one.

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