Remembering Oscar Trivia Quiz

Answer: Emil Jannings

Emil Jannings was a Swiss-born actor whose birth name was Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz. Of his 80 acting credits, only five of them were in American-made films, and only one of those, "The Last Command", is still intact today.

1929 marked the first presentation of the Academy Awards, a private function wherein the awards presentations were completed in about 15 minutes after dinner. Jannings wasn't even there to receive his award. You see, there were no surprises as to who was going to win -- the winners had all been announced in the press three months prior to the actual ceremony. Jannings had returned home to Germany before the event, and had received his Oscar (which wasn't called an Oscar yet) before he left.

That first year, multiple roles were considered in the nominations for acting, so Jannings won the award for his acting in both films cited in the question. "The Way of All Flesh" saw him play the role of a bank clerk whose life goes horribly wrong while transporting $1000 in securities from Milwaukee to Chicago. In "The Last Command" he was the former commander of the Czar's armies in Russia, fallen on hard times in the wake of the Communist Revolution. Both movies were silent films.

Answer: It Happened One Night

Sweeping the Big Five is not an easy feat, as you can well imagine. By the end of the 20th century, it had only been accomplished by two other films: 1975's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and 1991's "The Silence of the Lambs".

In the case of "It Happened One Night", the 'Big Five' were the only categories for which the film was nominated. Five nominations, five wins. Clark Gable won for Best Actor, while his counterpart Claudette Colbert claimed Best Actress. Robert Riskin won for the Best Adapted Screenplay and Frank Capra earned Best Director honours. Oscar number five was for Outstanding Production (Best Picture), for which the movie beat out 11 other nominees to win.

"It Happened One Night" is based on the story "Night Bus" by Samuel Hopkins Adams. Ellen 'Ellie' Andrews marries fortune-hunter King Westley against her father's wishes. Her father 'rescues' her from the situation before the marriage can be consummated. Ellie runs away again and takes a bus to New York City where she meets reporter Peter Warne. Through their adventure, they fall in love with each other.

Answer: Luise Rainer

All four of the options given have accomplished the seemingly impossible: back-to-back Oscars for Best Actor or Actress in a Leading Role. In recent memory, Tom Hanks did it with "Philadelphia" (1993) and "Forrest Gump" (1994). Before him, it was Katharine Hepburn with "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967) and "The Lion in Winter" (1968). In a close second place was Spencer Tracy, who managed it with "Captains Courageous" (1937) and "Boys Town" (1938).

But it was Luise Rainer who did it first with 1936's "The Great Ziegfeld" and 1937's "The Good Earth". In "The Great Ziegfeld", a fictionalized biography of Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., Rainer played the part of Ziegfeld's first wife, Anna Held. Her performance also marked the first time that an acting Oscar had been earned for an acting role in a musical. In "The Good Earth", adapted from the novel by Pearl S. Buck, Rainer played O-Lan, the wife to main character Wang Lung, played by Paul Muni. The story revolved around a Chinese farming couple struggling to survive.

Answer: Gone With the Wind

The first time that an all-colour film was nominated for Best Picture was at the 10th Academy Awards in 1938. The film in question was "A Star is Born" (1937), starring Janet Gaynor and Frederic March. Two years later at the 1940 Awards, "Gone With the Wind" beat out nine other contenders to take the Oscar for Outstanding Production.

"Gone With the Wind" has a couple other firsts that it can boast about: first film to receive more than five nominations (13, winning 10); and the first to have an African-American actress nominated and win (Hattie McDaniel, Best Supporting Actress).

Set in Georgia during the American Civil War, "Gone With the Wind" follows Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) and her family's ordeal dealing with the realities of war as the men go off to fight for the Confederates and fight a losing battle. Against that backdrop is a love triangle as Scarlett fancies gentleman Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), while scalawag Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) tries to court Scarlett.

The screenplay was adapted from Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel of the same name.

Answer: Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier won for his role in "Lilies of the Field" (1963), his second time being nominated for Best Actor. His first nomination came for the 1958 film "The Defiant Ones". And while he may hold the distinction of being the first to actually WIN the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role, it was Dorothy Dandridge who was the first African-American to be nominated for a Leading Role (1954's "Carmen Jones").

In "Lilies of the Field", Poitier plays Homer Smith, a wandering handyman who stops gets caught up in the efforts of a group of immigrant nuns to build a chapel. Originally only intending to help them with a few chores for a day (and hoping for but not really expecting to get paid), Homer gets talked into staying longer and longer.

Answer: Katharine Hepburn

Everyone always asks who the first person to win FOUR acting Oscars was, and the answer is also Katharine Hepburn. Her first Best Actress Oscar came for playing wannabe Broadway performer Eva Lovelace in 1933's "Morning Glory". She received her second and third in consecutive years for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967) and "The Lion in Winter" (1968), becoming at that time the second person to win three acting Oscars, but the first woman to do so. Prior to her achievement, Walter Brennan had accrued three Oscars, each for Best Supporting Actor.

And, of course, Hepburn's Oscars were all for Leading Roles. She added her fourth Best Actress win for playing Ethel Thayer in "On Golden Pond" opposite Henry Fonda in 1981.

The next person to win their third Oscar for a Leading Role did not do so until the 85th Academy Awards in 2013, when Daniel Day-Lewis won for "Lincoln" (2012).

Answer: George C. Scott

Over his career, George C. Scott received four Oscar nominations; two for Best Supporting Actor, and two for Best Actor. The only time he won was for "Patton" (1970) at the 43rd Academy Awards in 1971. According to the Wikipedia article on George C. Scott, he refused the Oscar because he believed "every great dramatic performance was unique and could not be compared to others".

The first person to refuse an Oscar was Dudley Nichols, the winner of Best Writer, Screenplay for "The Informer" (1935) at the 8th Academy Awards. His reason for refusing was on account of the Screen Writers Guild being on strike.

"Patton", a biographical film on the General during World War II, received ten nominations, winning seven of them, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay (earning four of the Big Five with Scott's Best Actor win).

Answer: The Godfather, Part II

"The Godfather" trilogy of movies was the first set of three movies to each receive the nomination for Best Picture. The first two installments (1972 and 1974) won their respective Oscars, leaving "The Godfather, Part III" (1990) without. Between the three of them the story of the Corleone family received a total of 28 Oscar nominations, with "The Godfather" winning three and "The Godfather, Part II" winning six.

The second installment of the trilogy acted as both a prequel and a sequel to the first movie, as flashbacks gave the history of Don Vito Corleone's arrival in America and the establishment of his 'family business', while also continuing the story begun in the first film.

Answer: Peter Finch

Peter Finch was an Australian actor (although born in England) who was on a promotional tour for "Network" when he suffered a heart attack at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He died on January 17th, 1977 at the age of 60. Finch acted in 54 films over his nearly 30-year career. His role in "Network" was his only Oscar win of two nominations, his first nomination coming for 1971's "Sunday Bloody Sunday".

In "Network", Finch played a news anchor who struggles with the news that he must deliver, going somewhat publicly crazy. The film won three of the four acting Oscars (Finch for Best Actor, as well as Faye Dunaway for Best Actress and Beatrice Straight for Best Supporting Actress).

A number of other actors have been posthumously nominated for Oscars over the years, but the next one to win after Finch was fellow Australian Heath Ledger, who won Best Supporting Actor for playing the Joker in 2008's "The Dark Knight".

Answer: Kathryn Bigelow

Kathryn Bigelow was only the fourth woman to receive a nomination for Best Director since the inception of the Academy Awards. The first was Lina Wertmüller for the 1975 film "Seven Beauties". The second and third women nominated for Best Director didn't win, but they DID win the Oscar for the screenplays that they wrote (Jane Campion for 1993's "The Piano" and Sofia Coppola for 2003's "Lost in Translation").

Kathryn Bigelow has been writing, directing films since the early 1980s, with eight directing credits to her name prior to winning the Oscar for Best Director. She won for "The Hurt Locker", a film set during the American war in Iraq that follows a team of bomb disposal specialists as they deal with the dangers and stresses of their positions. Her win was also notable in that she won out over her famous director ex-husband James Cameron, who was nominated for "Avatar" (2009) at the same time.

Although made in 2008, "The Hurt Locker" was not released in the US until 2009, which made it eligible for the 2010 Oscars.