Oscar's Girls: My Definitive List
In honor of the Academy Awards tomorrow, here's a list of all the young actresses who have been given, nominated for, or won Oscars over the years. Click on the cuts to read their reactions to the news and their memories of the ceremony.
- Shirley Temple - Recipient: Honorary Award, 1935. Age: 6 - Youngest person to receive an Oscar. Officially, Shirley was given an Oscar in recognition of her "contribution to screen entertainment." But unofficially, everyone in Hollywood knew that it was the tyke's reward for single-handedly saving Twentieth Century-Fox from bankruptcy. In her autobiography, Shirley wrote, in part: "As the formal recitation of nominees and awards dragged on, I collected crumbs from nearby partially eaten hard rolls and made symmetrical little piles on the tablecloth. I recognized my name but with total suprise. Nobody had even hinted I might win anything. Leaping to my feet, I ran up the ramp to the stage. Right behind me in ladylike haste came Mother. "Thank you all very much," I called upwards toward the microphone. "Mommy, can we go home now?"
- Deanna Durbin - Recipient: Honorary Award, 1939. Age: 17.
- Bonita Granville - Nominee: Best Supporting Actress, 1937, for These Three. Age: 14.
- Judy Garland - Recipient: Honorary Award, 1940, for The Wizard of Oz. Age: 17.
- Margaret O'Brien - Recipient: Honorary Award, 1945, for Meet Me in St. Louis. Age: 8.
- Peggy Ann Garner - Recipient: Honorary Award, 1946, for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Age: 14.
- Patty McCormack - Nominee: Best Supporting Actress, 1957, for The Bad Seed. Age: 11.
- Hayley Mills - Recipient: Honorary Award, 1961, for Pollyanna. Age: 14.
- Patty Duke - Winner: Best Supporting Actress, 1963, for The Miracle Worker. Age: 16 - Youngest person to win an Oscar at the time (until Tatum O'Neal won in 1974). Patty said in a 2003 interview: "During the swirl of the party afterward, I heard this voice congratulating me. It was a voice with a pair of lungs that sounded like bellows. It was Bette Davis. The part of me that was brought up to have perfect manners certainly said the appropriate things to her, like 'Thank you' and 'Lovely to meet you,' but the part of me that was real was going, 'Oh my God, wait till I tell my mother!' I remember sitting at her knee, trying not to look too stupid while I stared at those eyes I'd seen in so many films. She really did have Bette Davis eyes! But that night was full of mixed feelings for me. Certainly I was thrilled to be on this exalted plane with these famous actors, but the downside was that the people I came with-the Rosses, who were my managers at the time-told me I couldn't bring my mother. I guess the Rosses, who did bring their Chihuahua that night in a black bag, thought my mother would be an embarrassment. I did call my mother during the party. Her one question was 'Did the dog go?'"
- Mary Badham - Nominee: Best Supporting Actress, 1963, for To Kill a Mockingbird. Age: 10. (Although Mary was nominated for a supporting role, she was the lead actress in the film.) In a rare 2004 interview entitled "Queen for a Night," Mary said that she rarely ever went to the movies as a child and recalled of Oscar night, "it was no big deal. I wanted to be a large-animal vet." She lost to Patty Duke, but her disappointment was softened at an after-party where she got to sit on Danny Thomas's lap.
- Tatum O'Neal - Winner: Best Supporting Actress, 1974, for Paper Moon. Age: 10 - Youngest person to win an Oscar. (As with Mary Badham, Tatum had a lead role in Paper Moon, not a supporting one.) Tatum's jealous father Ryan (her co-star in Paper Moon) supposedly punched her in the face when he learned of her Oscar nomination. She attended with her grandparents, and like Shirley Temple, she found the ceremony long and boring. In her autobiography, Tatum wrote, in part: "No one else from the movie attended, so there was no celebratory air, no sense that anyone was cheering me on. As the ceremony dragged on, I got tired and bored. Then my name was called. I headed to the stage in a blur of confusion. I didn't even have a speech read, so all I said was, 'I want to thank my director and my father.' Afterward, my grandparents took me back to their Pacific Palisades home. We didn't have a party or do anything special. I had little sense of accomplishment. There was no fanfare from anyone who mattered to me. The feeling I most associate with winning the Oscar is an overwhelming sadness at being abandoned by my parents."
- Linda Blair - Nominee: Best Supporting Actress, 1974, for The Exorcist. Age: 15.
- Jodie Foster - Nominee: Best Supporting Actress, 1977, for Taxi Driver. Age: 14.
- Quinn Cummings - Nominee: Best Supporting Actress, 1978, for The Goodbye Girl. Age: 11.
- Anna Paquin - Winner: Best Supporting Actress, 1994, for The Piano. Age: 11 - Second-youngest person to win an Oscar (after Tatum O'Neal). In a 2009 interview, Anna recalled, "I remember it via anecdotes that other people have told me and their impressions of it. I still didn't really understand why everyone knew my name, or why they cared so much or wanted to know what I had to say about anything. I've seen it [The Piano] recently, and I don't know what the big fuss was regarding my performance, but I think everyone else was really great."
- Keisha Castle-Hughes - Nominee: Best Actress, 2004, for Whale Rider. Age: 13 - Youngest person to be nominated for Best Actress. Keisha was plucked from obscurity for Whale Rider by the same casting director who discovered Anna Paquin. It was 3 a.m. in Keisha's native New Zealand when she got the news: "My mum came running into my room, saying, 'Keisha, you've just been nominated.' I thought I was still sleeping. I thought, 'I'll be happy in the morning.'" In a 2009 interview, Keisha recounted the blur of interviews, press conferences, and award shows that followed: "I got manicures every three days, and I'd never had my nails done in my life. I had my eyebrows plucked, which was a horrible experience, and I don't think I've had them plucked since. I wanted to go home and go back to school."
- Abigail Breslin - Nominee: Best Supporting Actress, 2007, for Little Miss Sunshine. Age: 10. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Abigail recounted her nonchalant reaction to the news: "I was in bed, and my mom and my brother came in, and they woke me up and they told me, and I was really excited. Then I kind of went back to bed." When Oprah Winfrey asked who her date for the Oscars was, Abigail said that she was going with her parents and her Curious George doll.
- Saoirse Ronan - Nominee: Best Supporting Actress, 2008, for Atonement. Age: 13. Like Abigail Breslin and Keisha Castle-Hughes, Saoirse Ronan got the news in the wee hours of the morning, courtesy of a 3 a.m. phone call to New Zealand, where she was filming The Lovely Bones. Saoirse said that her father answered the phone and "he literally screamed, so we knew something must be happening. I didn't really want to think about it at all, because I thought if I thought about it too much, then I might get excited. Then if it didn't happen, I might be disappointed."
See also our gallery of young actresses at the Oscars.