Those Who Have Won a Best Actress Oscar Quiz

Answer: Japan

Born Olivia Mary de Havilland and Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in Tokyo, Japan in 1916 and 1917 respectively, the sisters were both nominated for Best Actress in 1941. Joan Fontaine, who had adopted her step-father's surname when she started acting professionally, had been nominated for her performance in Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca" the previous year.

In 1941, she won for her role in another Hitchcock film, "Suspicion", whilst de Havilland was nominated for "Hold Back the Dawn". Fontaine was nominated again, in 1943, for "The Constant Nymph". De Havilland also won when she was nominated for the second time, in 1946, for "To Each His Own".

She earned her third nomination in 1948 for "The Snake Pit" and her fourth a year later in the title role of William Wyler's "The Heiress", for which she also won.

Answer: Claudette Colbert

Émilie "Lily" Chauchoin was born in the eastern Parisian suburb of Saint-Mandé. The family moved to New York City when she was just three years old and she began performing on Broadway in the early 1920s using the name Claudette Colbert, and made her film debut in 1927.

Her performance as the pampered socialite Ellen "Ellie" Andrews in the 1934 Frank Capra comedy "It Happened One Night" earned Colbert her first Oscar nomination and her only win. The film also became the first to win Oscars in all five major categories (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay), a feat since repeated by "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in 1975 and "The Silence of the Lambs" in 1991. Colbert received two more Best Actress nominations -- in 1935 for "Private Worlds" and in 1944 for "Since You Went Away".

Answer: Deborah Kerr

Born Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer in 1921 in Glasgow, Scotland, she received her first Best Actress nomination in 1949 for her performance opposite Spencer Tracy in George Cukor's "Edward, My Son". She was nominated again in 1953 for "From Here to Eternity", which won eight Oscars from 13 nominations including Best Supporting Actor (Frank Sinatra) and Best Supporting Actress (Donna Reed).

Her third nomination was for her best-remembered role, in 1956 as Anna Leonowens in "The King and I", for which Kerr won the Golden Globe for Best Actress but was beaten to the Oscar by Ingrid Bergman's performance in "Anastasia". "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" in 1957 and "Separate Tables" in 1958 both earned Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, whilst "The Sundowners" in 1960 brought both Oscar and BAFTA nominations but no trophy.

In 1994, Kerr was given honorary awards at the Oscars, the BAFTAs and the Cannes Film Festival. In 1998, she was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II and was also honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Kerr died from the effects of Parkinson's disease aged 86 in 2007. Of the alternatives, Irene Dunne was nominated five times without winning whilst Vanessa Redgrave has four nominations but no win. Sissy Spacek has had numerous nominations but did win, in 1980 for "The Coal Miner's Daughter".

Answer: Joanne Woodward

Born Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward in Thomasville, Georgia in 1930, she played three roles (Eve White, Eve Black and Jane) in winning the 1957 Oscar. The following year, she married Paul Newman, who earned nine Oscar nominations and won the Best Actor statuette for "The Color of Money".

The couple were married until Newman's death in 2008. Woodward was subsequently nominated three more times, for "Rachel, Rachel" in 1968, for "Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams" in 1973 and for "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge" in 1990.

Answer: Barbra Streisand

Born Katharine Houghton Hepburn in Hartford CT in 1907, she was nominated for Best Actress twelve times (a record until Meryl Streep surpassed that total in 2009). Her four wins were double anyone else's total at the time of her death in 2003 at the age of 96. Hepburn's first and last wins were a remarkable 48 years apart; she won for "Morning Glory" in 1934, then failed to win on any of the next eight times she was nominated. She then won for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" in 1968, for "The Lion in Winter" in 1969 and for "On Golden Pond" in 1982.
Hepburn shared the 1969 award with Barbra Streisand, whose performance as Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl" was also her film debut. She was nominated again in 1974 for "The Way We Were". Streisand would subsequently win a second Oscar, the Best Original Song award, for "Evergreen" from "A Star Is Born" in 1977. She was also nominated in the Best Picture category in 1992 for "The Prince of Tides".
At the time of her death in 2003, she dominated the Best Actress Oscar category, her four wins being two more than anyone else.

Answer: Liza Minnelli

Liza Minnelli was nominated for "The Sterile Cuckoo" in 1969, only her second credited film appearance. Three years later, her role as Sally Bowles in "Cabaret" earned her not only a nomination but also a statuette. Minnelli's mother, Judy Garland, was awarded an Academy Juvenile Award in 1939 following her performance as Dorothy Gale in "The Wizard of Oz" but was also nominated for Best Actress for "A Star Is Born" in 1956.
In 2013, Drew Barrymore was still awaiting her first nomination, although her great-aunt Ethel Barrymore, was nominated four times in the Best Supporting Actress category and her godmother (Sophia Loren) won the Best Actress Oscar for "Two Women" in 1961.
Kate Hudson was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "Almost Famous" in 2001, a category in which her mother (Goldie Hawn) had won for "Cactus Flower" in 1969. Hawn had also been nominated in the Best Actress category for "Private Benjamin" in 1980.
Jane Fonda earned her first Oscar nomination in 1969 for "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?". She won for "Klute" in 1971 and for "Coming Home" in 1978. Her mother was the socialite Frances Ford Seymour Brokaw but her father, Henry Fonda, was nominated for Best Actor for "The Grapes of Wrath" in 1940 and in the Best Picture category for "12 Angry Men" in 1957 before eventually winning Best Actor for "On Golden Pond" in 1981.

Answer: Luise Rainer

Born in Düsseldorf, Germany in January 1910, Luise Rainer was the first actress to win more than one Best Actress statuette, winning in 1936 for "The Great Ziegfeld" and in 1937 for "The Good Earth". Living in the UK at the age of 103 in 2013, she was the oldest living Oscar winner in any category. Olivia de Havilland was born in 1916.

She won in 1946 for "To Each His Own" and in 1949 for "The Heiress". Her younger sister, Joan Fontaine (born in 1917), who died aged 96 in December 2013, won in 1941 for Alfred Hitchcock's "Suspicion" having been nominated the previous year for "Rebecca". Greer Garson, the winner for "Mrs. Miniver" in 1942, was born before even Hepburn (in 1904) but she died at the age of 91 in 1996.

Answer: Bette Davis

Born Ruth Elizabeth Davis in Lowell MA in 1908, Bette Davis made her film debut in 1931. The only year in which the Oscars allowed write-in votes was 1934, and Davis's performance in "On Human Bondage" attracted many. The Academy, though, does not consider this a nomination, so she had to wait a further year for her first official nomination. Davis won the Oscar for "Dangerous" in 1935 and she won again in 1938 for "Jezebel".

She was to receive eight more nominations over the next quarter of century, but no more wins.

Her final nomination, and her tenth officially (making her the first to reach that tally), was for "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" in 1962. If you count the 1934 write-in year, then she achieved her tenth nomination a decade before that. Katherine Hepburn's tenth nomination came in 1968 and Meryl Streep's in 2006 (and she also had three nominations for Best Supporting Actress before then too).

Answer: Canada

The winner of the first Best Actress Oscar, Janet Gaynor in 1927-28, was born Laura Augusta Gainor in Germantown PA, USA in 1906.
The next three winners, though, were all born in Canada. The 1928-29 winner, Mary Pickford, was born Gladys Marie Smith in Toronto ON in 1892. The 1929-30 winner, Norma Shearer, was born Edith Norma Shearer in Montreal PQ in 1902. The 1930-31 winner, Marie Dressler, was born Leila Marie Koerber in Cobourg ON in 1868.

Answer: Jessica Tandy

Jessica Tandy was by far the oldest winner of the Best Actress Oscar when she won for "Driving Miss Daisy" at the age of 80 in 1990. Katherine Hepburn had won for "On Golden Pond" in at the age of 74 and the next oldest was Marie Dressler, who was awarded the 1931 Oscar the day after her 63rd birthday. Jessica Tandy, though, died at the age of 85 in 1994.

The other three all lived into their 90s... Jane Wyman, former wife of President Ronald Reagan and Oscar winner for "Johnny Belinda" in 1949, was born in 1917 and died aged 90 in 2007. Greer Garson, the winner in 1943 for "Mrs. Miniver" was born in 1904 and died aged 91 in 2006.

Helen Hayes, the winner in 1932 for "The Sin of Madelon Claudet", was born in 1900 and died aged 92 in 1993.