Over the 96 years of Academy Awards history, over 900 men and women have been honored with acting nominations. On July 4, 2024, the oldest surviving acting winner (or nominee) has turned 100 years old. Our research shows that Eva Marie Saint joins a very short list of centenarians who received Oscar acting nominations, with four winning the award.
A star of stage, radio, TV and film, Saint won the Best Supporting Actress statue in 1955 for her debut movie performance in “On the Waterfront;” she is also the earliest surviving acting winner, and one of the last stars of the Golden Era. She later starred alongside Cary Grant in one of Alfred Hitchcock‘s most acclaimed films, “North by Northwest” (1959), and became known to a younger generation as Clark Kent’s adoptive mother in “Superman Returns” (2006). Although she’s never received another Oscar nomination, she’s earned five Emmy nominations, winning Best Miniseries Supporting Actress for “People Like Us” in 1990. Along with Saint, which four Oscar acting winners lived to be 100?
The reigning champ of Oscar survivors was the German-born Luise Rainer, who died on December 30, 2014, just 13 days shy of her 105th birthday. Besides being the longest-lived Oscar winner of all time, she was also the first thespian to take home back-to-back acting Oscars. Her first Best Actress statue came in 1937, for her role as the emotional first wife of Florenz Ziegfeld in the musical biopic “The Great Ziegfeld.” The following year, she won for a completely opposite role, starring as the demure Chinese peasant O-Lan in “The Good Earth.” Rainer was just 28 years-old with the second win, and her career spiraled downward afterwards, and she only made a few more films before largely leaving Hollywood, only making sporadic appearances on TV and film.
Another actress who garnered two wins was Olivia de Havilland, who died July 26, 2020, less than a month after turning 104. Her first nomination came in supporting in 1940, for her most well-known role of Melanie in “Gone with the Wind.” Between 1942 and 1950, she received four Best Actress bids, winning for “To Each His Own” in 1947 and “The Heiress” in 1950. She was the last surviving major star of Classic Hollywood, and appeared in 49 feature-length films over a five-decade career that includes numerous classic films, including nine with Errol Flynn, most memorably “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938).
The fourth winner just squeaked past his 100th birthday. George Burns died March 9, 1996 after turning the milestone age on January 20. The comedian rose to fame alongside his wife and comic partner Gracie Allen on radio and TV. He had only appeared in about 15 films (usually as himself) when, at the age of 79, he was offered the role of Al Lewis in “The Sunshine Boys,” his first feature film appearance in 36 years. He won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar at the age of 80, making him the oldest acting recipient up to that time. And he continued to work most of the remaining 20 years of his life, appearing in films like “Oh, God!” (1977) and working stand-up. His final TV appearance was in 1995, when he received the lifetime achievement award presented by the Screen Actors Guild.
In addition to those four Oscar winners, there have been three acting nominees who lived to be 100:
Like de Havilland, Kirk Douglas was born in 1916 (December to her January), and died in 2020, but he passed in February at the age of 103 to her 104. He appeared in his first film, “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers,” in 1946, and received his first of three Best Actor nominations for “Champion” in 1950. He followed with nominations for “The Bad and the Beautiful” in 1953 and “Lust for Life,” in which he portrayed Vincent van Gogh, in 1957. He failed to win any of the bids, but was bestowed an honorary Oscar in 1996. Surprisingly, he failed to garner a bid for his most famous role of “Spartacus” (1960); however, he insisted screenplay credit be given to the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, an act that was instrumental in ending the blacklist in Hollywood.
In 1998, 87-year-old Gloria Stuart became the record holder for oldest nominee for Best Supporting Actress, earning her bid as the 101-year-old Rose in “Titanic.” Between 1932 and 1946, she appeared in more than 40 films, including “The Invisible Man” (1933) opposite Claude Rains, and “Poor Little Rich Girl” (1936) and “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” (1938) alongside Shirley Temple. But it was her role in “Titanic” that produced her sole Oscar nomination, and gave her a career resurgence late in life. In 2004, she appeared in “Land of Plenty,” her final film role before her death on September 26, 2010, just a little over two months after her centennial birthday.
The most recent of Oscar’s centenarians to pass away was Glynis Johns, who died January 4,2024, three months after turning 100. In 1961, she received her sole Oscar nomination for her role in Best Picture nominee “The Sundowners.” She had an incredible multi-decade career, with her first film appearance at the age of 14 in “South Riding” in 1938. Her career included TV and stage as well, and she won the Tony for Best Musical Actress in 1973 for “A Little Night Music.” However, she is best remembered as the mother of the Banks children in “Mary Poppins” (1964), a role that earned her the title of Disney Legend in 1998.
Several Oscar acting nominees and winners have lived long lives, with quite a few making it into their 90s. And although he was never nominated for an acting Oscar, Bob Hope is an indelible part of academy history, hosting the ceremonies a record 19 times. Between 1940 and 1965, the Academy honored him with five special awards for his contributions to the film industry, his humanitarian works and his services to the academy. He died on July 27, 2003, two months after his 100th birthday.
There are currently around 20 acting winners and nominees who are nonagenarians, including Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, James Earl Jones, Shirley Jones, Shirley MacLaine, Rita Moreno and Joanne Woodward, who might one day join the 100 club.
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