All Academy Award winners since 1950 have been required by the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences to sign releases indicating they will not sell their Oscars.

Frances McDormand (Fargo) defeated Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient) to win the Best Actress Oscar in 1996. McDormand became the first star to win in a film directed by a spouse, husband Joel Coen. Her brother-in-law, Ethan Coen, was the film's producer.

Gena Rowlands (A Woman Under the Influence), directed by husband John Cassavetes

Melina Mercouri (Never on Sunday), directed by husband Jules Dassin

Julie Andrews (Victor, Victoria) directed by husband Blake Edwards.

To date, no female directors have had their starring husbands receive an Oscar nod.

Geoffrey Rush became the first Australian actor to win Best Actor since Peter Finch won posthumously for Network (1976). Rush's win was all the more surprising because he played only one-third of the role of the mad pianist in Shine (1996).

Actress Linda Hunt was the first person to win an Academy Award for portraying a person of the opposite sex; she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1983 for her brilliant performance as Billy Kwan, a male photographer, in The Year of Living Dangerously. Hunt also reaped the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, New York Film Critics Circle Award, and the National Board of Review award for her performance.

In 1953, Walt Disney (the man, not the studio) received Oscars in the categories of Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, Cartoon Short Subject, and Two-Reel Short Subject. These four Academy Awards are the most ever won by one person in a single year. Disney personally received 26 Academy Awards during his lifetime, including a unique set of miniature Oscars for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, making him the Academy's most honored individual.

Wings (1927-1928) was the first and only silent film to win the Best Picture Oscar.

Author: Vicki McClure Davidson

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