Actors Who Set the Bar High by Winning an Oscar in Their First Film

For those who love classic movies, you may remember Gale Sondergaard from a number of films in the 1930s and 1940s, some of them in the Sherlock Holmes series, usually playing a cunning schemer. She won her first and only Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in her debut film, “Anthony Adverse,” a sweeping period love story based on a novel by Hervey Allen. Sondergaard would be nominated for one other Oscar but did not win.

Greek-born Katina Paxinou was a founding member of the National Theatre of Greece. She didn’t gain a starring role in films until she was 42 when she was cast as Pilar in the movie version of the Ernest Hemingway novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and won Best Supporting Actress for her performance. It was Paxinou’s only Oscar nomination. She has 23 other acting credits, including appearances on television series.

“The Best Years of Our Lives” tells the story of three American World War II veterans adjusting to civilian life after they return home. The character of Homer Parrish was played by Harold Russell, a real veteran who had lost his hands in an accident during the war. Russell was the first non-professional actor to win an Academy Award for acting.

Mercedes McCambridge had a long and successful career in radio before she turned to the big screen playing strong, willful women. In 1949 she appeared as Sadie Burke in the political drama “All the King’s Men” and won for Best Supporting Actress in her screen debut. McCambridge was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the film “Giant.” Among her other credits: She was the voice of the demon in “The Exorcist.”

Shirley Booth may be remembered by baby boomers as the spirited and acerbic maid in the 1960s sitcom “Hazel.” Booth was an accomplished stage actress, winning a Tony Award in 1950 for her portrayal of the put-upon character Lola Delaney in “Come Back, Little Sheba. She reprised the role of Lola Delaney on the big screen for which she won a Best Actress Academy Award.

New Jersey-born Eva Marie Saint played Edie Doyle, the girlfriend of Hoboken longshoreman Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) who pushes him to stand up against corruption in “On the Waterfront.” She won an Oscar for her role, and her demure, vulnerable persona earned her roles in other films such as “North by Northwest,” “Raintree County,” and “Exodus.”

Honored stage actress Jo Van Fleet won a Tony Award in 1954 for her role in “A Trip to Bountiful.” She then turned to the big screen the following year, where she won the Best Supporting Actress statue as James Dean’s estranged mother in “East of Eden.” Van Fleet has 56 acting credits and was busy doing television series in the 1950s and 1960s, such as “Naked City,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” and “The Virginian.”

Julia Andrews is the daughter of vaudeville performers, who captivated audiences with her voice and charm and became one of the most beloved actresses in movie history. Her career began on Broadway, in which she played the role of Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady”. She won the Best Actress Oscar as the title character in “Mary Poppins,” an English nanny with magical talents. Andrews was later nominated for Best Actress in “The Sound of Music” and “Victor Victoria.”

The often-honored Barbra Streisand has been nominated for five Academy Awards and won twice. She is in a special group of performers known as an EGOT – she has won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. Of her two Best Actress nominations, the first was for her screen debut for “Funny Girl,” for which she won an Oscar. She was also nominated for Best Actress in the film “The Way We Were.” Her other film credits include “The Owl and the Pussycat,” “Little Fockers,” and “Yentl.”

Tatum O’Neal became the youngest person to win a competitive Academy Award at 10 years old. Her role was of Addie Loggins, a young con artist who swindles people during the Depression along with her adult partner, played by her actual father, Ryan O’Neal. The success of this role was followed by roles in “The Bad News Bears” and “Little Darlings.” She has 37 acting credits and has done much of her later work on television.

Timothy Hutton, son of actor Jim Hutton, became the youngest man to earn an acting Oscar when he won for Best Supporting Actor at 20. Hutton played the emotionally damaged son of a family torn apart by the death of a family member. Although Hutton has had a busy career,  with 85 acting credits, many of them as appearances on television series such as “American Crime” and “How to Get Away with Murder.” To date, this has been his only Oscar nomination.

A movie could be based on the life of Haing S. Ngor alone. He was a physician in the Cambodian army before the genocidal Khmer Rouge took over the nation in 1975. He was imprisoned, tortured, became a refugee, and came to the United States in 1980. Even though he had no formal acting training, he was picked to play photographer Dith Pran in “The Killing Fields,” about the Cambodian conflict. He won for Best Supporting Actor. In 1996, Ngor was found shot to death in the garage of a Los Angeles apartment building.

Marlee Matlin’s Oscar win for Best Actress in her role as Sarah in the film “Children of a Lesser God,” made history. At 21, she was not only the youngest performer to win Best Actress, but also the first hearing-impaired person to win an acting Oscar. This was her only Oscar nomination and win to date. She has been nominated several times for an Emmy.

Canadian-New Zealand actress Anna Paquin made her acting debut in “The Piano” when she was only 11. She became the second-youngest actress to win a competitive Academy Award when she took home the Best Supporting Actress for her role as Flora. Paquin has had a busy career since then, with 54 acting credits. She appeared in Martin Scorsese’s film “The Irishman” and was in the football-themed movie “American Underdog,” released last year.

Rising to fame as a finalist in the third season of “American Idol”,  Jennifer Hudson, at 25, became the youngest African-American to win Best Supporting Actress when she took home an Oscar for her role as Effie White in “Dreamgirls.” The film is based on the Broadway show of the same name about a trio of Black female singers seeking stardom in the 1960s.

Lupita Nyong’o tugged at heartstrings with her performance as the abused slave Patsey in the film “12 Years a Slave” and has also appeared in large-budget blockbuster films like “Black Panther,” “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens,” and “The Jungle Book.” She also has numerous additional acting credits to her name.