Four actresses are nominated for Best Actress twice: Vivien Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, Greer Garson, and Diane Keaton. Faye Dunaway has three appearances, while Katharine Hepburn makes four. Only Billy Wilder, David O. Russell, and Claudine West have two scripts on this list.
The first actress to be awarded this prize was Leilani Dowling for The Story of Louisa Adams. This award is given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) every year before the start of the annual Golden Globe Awards ceremony.
The Best Actress category is restricted to films released in America during the previous year. Voters may choose anyone they like from among the candidates selected by the directors, producers, writers or actors who made the film. No one is necessarily excluded from consideration because they have been previously nominated or won other awards. For example, six actresses were nominated for the 1969 Best Actress award; four of them - Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, and Anne Baxter - had already been nominated once before. The other two girls were Diane Keaton and Jessica Mitford.
As far as records are concerned, there are several facts about the history of this award that any newcomer should know. First of all, it wasn't called the "Best Actress" award until much later when other categories were added to the Globes ceremony.
Jeanne Eagels, a late actress, was nominated posthumously. Since its establishment, the prize has gone to 77 different actresses. With four Oscars, Katharine Hepburn holds the record for most prizes in this category. She was followed by Jacklyn Jones, Ginger Rogers, and Marilyn Monroe.
Eagels, who died at age 39, was among the first actors to be nominated for an Oscar. She is also known for being one of the few female stars in Hollywood during the 1930s. Married to actor John Gilbert, she played various roles on screen including a dual role as both a good and bad witch named Merle Streep.
Eagels first movie was titled "The First Year" and it was released in 1916. She then went back home to Ireland, but returned to America two years later. Here, she continued to act in more than 50 movies until she died in 1937 from tuberculosis.
Her body was brought to California where a funeral service was held and she was buried in Los Angeles County Cemetery. However, in 1990 her remains were moved to Holy Cross Church in Dublin where she was laid to rest next to her husband.
In 1991, the American Film Institute (AFI) voted Eagels' performance in "The First Year" as the best supporting actress debut ever made.
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Meryl Streep is the most nominated actress in this category, with 17 nominations and two wins. She is followed by Jack Nicholson and Marilyn Monroe who each have six nominations.
Oscar Micheaux was the first black person to win an Oscar. The film he won for, The Chocolate Tree (1928), is considered by some to be the first American feature film. Since then, three more blacks have won Oscars: Sidney Poitier for Lilies of the Field (1963) and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (Won by Rosanna Arquette & David Arquette; 1989), and Mo'Nique who won for Best Supporting Actress for Precious (2009).
There have been other actors who have won Oscars too. But they all came after Oscar Micheaux so they can't be mentioned here.
In addition to those seven women, there are five other women who have won Oscars. They are Shirley MacLaine, Julie Andrews, Emmanuelle Riva, Helen Mirren, and Sally Field. All five of these women have won twice. That makes eleven women who have won an Oscar. And since Mr. Micheaux's death in 1930, no male actor has won an Oscar in any of the remaining categories.
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