15 Fantastic Oscar Facts
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1. Silent Oscar Winner
Silent film 'The Artist' is widely tipped to win the Best Picture gong at this year's Oscars, but the only silent film to previously win an Oscar for Best Picture was 'Wings' in 1929. The movie about two young fighter pilots during World War I starred Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, Richard Arlen, Clara Bow and a young Gary Cooper.
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2. Film with the Most Oscar Nominations
'The Artist' may lead the film pack this year, with 12 Academy Award nods, but the most nominated movies of all time garnered a whopping 14 nominations. First up was black and white film All About Eve in 1950. 50 years later, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio's doomed love story 'Titanic' sank all competition.
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3. First Technicolour Oscar Winner
The first colour film to win a Best Picture gong was 'Gone With The Wind' in 1940.
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4. The Most Oscars... Ever
Walt Disney has won more Oscars than anyone else. He was nominated for 64 awards, and won 26! Composer John Williams is the second most nominated person, with 47 Academy Award nominations (and counting).
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5. The Top Award Winners
Only three films have even won all five of the most coveted Oscars for Best Film, Actor, Actress, Director and Writing. They are: 'It Happened One Night' (1935), 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest' (1976) and 'The Silence Of The Lambs' (1992).
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6. Actor or Actress with the most Oscars
The actress with the most Oscars is Katharine Hepburn who won four Best Actress Oscars during her career. Clint Eastwood is the male actor with the most Oscars, with a total of 4 trophies to his name, but he didn't win any for acting. He won two Oscars for Best Director and two Oscars for Best Picture for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby.
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7. Youngest Oscar Winner
The youngest ever Oscar winner is actress Tatum O'Neal who was only 10 years old when she won Best Supporting Actress for the film 'Paper Moon'.
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8. Oldest Oscar Winner
The oldest person to win an Oscar was Jessica Tandy at the age of 81. She won the Best Actress Award for her part in 'Driving Miss Daisy'.
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9. First Female Best Director
Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director in 2010 for her Iraq war thriller, 'The Hurt Locker' in. Kathryn beat her ex-husband James Cameron who was up for the same award for his 3D epic 'Avatar'. She is only the fourth woman to ever receive a nomination, the others are Sofia Coppola for 'Lost In Translation' (2004), Jane Campion for 'The Piano' (1994) and Lina Wertmüller for 'Pasqualino Settebellezze' (1977).
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10. Cheapest Oscar Winner
'The Hurt Locker' broke another film industry record when it bagged six Oscars out of a total of nine nominations - including the coveted Best Picture gong - as the lowest grossing movie to ever win at the Oscars. It is estimated to have earned $21 million at the box office, that's less than 2% of what it's competitor 'Avatar' made in ticket sales in the same year.
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11. Most Expensive Oscar Winner
No surprise here - 'Avatar' holds the crown for most expensive movie ever to win an Oscar with a production budget estimated to be around $280 million. While it failed to win Best Picture or Best Director, it did pick up Academy Awards for Art Direction, Cinematography and Visual Effects.
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12. An Oscar-winning Family
Several famous couples have won Oscars, but only one Hollywood family can claim to be truly Oscar-winning - The Minelli's. Liza Minelli, daughter of Vincente Minnelli (who won Best Director in 1959 for Gigi) and Judy Garland (who received a miniature Juvenile Award in 1940), won Best Actress for Cabaret in 1973.
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13. Memorable Oscar Speech
Who can forget the moment Gwyneth Paltrow sobbed her way through her Best Actress acceptance in 1999 for 'Shakespeare in Love'? Or Julia Roberts, who got the giggles and forgot to thank her movie namesake, 'Erin Brockovich'. The longer speech however goes to Actress Greer Garson who rambled on for seven-minutes when she won the award for Best Supporting Actress in 1934.
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14. Introducing Oscar
Each gold-plated Oscar award costs $500 to make and weighs around 8 and a half pounds. Chicago based company R.S. Owens starts manufacturing the Oscar statuettes one year in advance of the show. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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15. A few Oscar Numbers
When they roll out the red carpet on Oscar night spare a thought for the organisers. The specially made carpet is a whopping 500 feet long and has to be rolled out at LA's prestigious Kodak Theatre days in advance, hoovered and covered with protective plastic, before being unveiled just hours before the ceremony.
