Best Actress Nominees and Winners (I've Seen)

Janet Gaynor was born Laura Gainor on October 6, 1906, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a child, she & her parents moved to San Francisco, California, where she graduated from high school in 1923. She then moved to Los Angeles where she enrolled in a secretarial school. She got a job at a shoe store for the princely sum of $18 per week...

She won a beauty contest at age fourteen. In 1920 her mother, Edith Shearer, took Norma and her sister Athole Shearer (Mrs. Howard Hawks) to New York. Ziegfeld rejected her for his "Follies," but she got work as an extra in several movies. She spent much money on eye doctor's services trying to correct her cross-eyed stare caused by a muscle weakness...

Born Mary Jeanette Robison. In her late teens she moved to the U.S. from Australia with no intention of becoming an actress; a few years later she became a widow, and in 1884 she took up acting to support her three children. She played both leads and supporting roles on the road and on Broadway, and over several decades she became highly respected as a character actress...

Screenwriter Allan Scott was one of Claudette Colbert's biggest fans after working with her on Skylark and So Proudly We Hail!. When she had trouble with one of his scenes she never said, "I can't play this scene"; her attitude was, "I think I'm missing something here", he recalled decades later when writing about Colbert's deep understanding as a friend...

Born May 12, 1907 in Hartford, Connecticut, she was the daughter of a doctor and a suffragette, both of whom always encouraged her to speak her mind, develop it fully, and exercise her body to its full potential. An athletic tomboy as a child, she was also very close to her brother, Tom, and was devastated at age 14 to find him dead...

Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908. Her parents divorced in 1916 and her mother took the family on a trip out West. While there they decided to settle down in the Los Angeles area. After being spotted playing baseball in the street with the neighborhood boys by a film director...

Luise Rainer, the first thespian to win back-to-back Oscars, was born on January 12, 1910 in Dusseldorf, Germany into a prosperous Jewish family. She took to the stage, and plied her craft on the boards in Germany. As a young actress, she was discovered by the legendary theater director Max Reinhardt and became part of his company in Vienna...

Janet Gaynor was born Laura Gainor on October 6, 1906, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a child, she & her parents moved to San Francisco, California, where she graduated from high school in 1923. She then moved to Los Angeles where she enrolled in a secretarial school. She got a job at a shoe store for the princely sum of $18 per week...

Wendy Hiller, daughter of Frank and Marie Hiller, was born on 15th August 1912 in Bramhall, near Stockport, Cheshire, England. She was educated at Winceby House School, Bexhill then moved on to Manchester Repertory Theatre. She appeared on stage in Sir John Barry's tour of Evensong, then as Sally Hardcastle in Love on the Dole...

Irene Marie Dunne was born on December 20, 1898, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the daughter of Joseph Dunne, who inspected steamships, and Adelaide Henry, a musician who prompted Irene in the arts. Her first production was in Louisville when she appeared in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the age of five...

Greer Garson was working at an advertising agency at age 24, when she decided to start a career as a full-time actor. While playing in "Old Music" in London, she was discovered by MGM's Louis B. Mayer who gave her a contract the following day. Her first part was in Goodbye, Mr. Chips, which gave her an Oscar nomination for best actress...

Her parents divorced when she was young. In her first year of high school, she gave up dance for acting. After a little time in John Murray Anderson's acting school, she was in the off-Broadway play "The Earth Between" (1923). Her Broadway debut in 1929 was in "Broken Dishes". Late in 1930, on a six-month Universal contract...

Born May 12, 1907 in Hartford, Connecticut, she was the daughter of a doctor and a suffragette, both of whom always encouraged her to speak her mind, develop it fully, and exercise her body to its full potential. An athletic tomboy as a child, she was also very close to her brother, Tom, and was devastated at age 14 to find him dead...

Her parents divorced when she was young. In her first year of high school, she gave up dance for acting. After a little time in John Murray Anderson's acting school, she was in the off-Broadway play "The Earth Between" (1923). Her Broadway debut in 1929 was in "Broken Dishes". Late in 1930, on a six-month Universal contract...

Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western The Big Valley, wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys. But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the period from 1927 until 1964...

A natural and lovely talent who was discovered for films by Samuel Goldwyn, the always likable Teresa Wright distinguished herself early on in high-caliber, Oscar-worthy form -- the only performer ever to be nominated for Oscars for her first three films. Always true to herself, she was able to earn Hollywood stardom on her own unglamorized terms...

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, on August 29, 1915. Her mother died when she was only two and her father died when she was 12. She went to live with an elderly uncle. At 18, after school graduation, the lonely and shy girl decided to become an actress. In 1934 she debuted in the Swedish film Munkbrogreven...

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, on August 29, 1915. Her mother died when she was only two and her father died when she was 12. She went to live with an elderly uncle. At 18, after school graduation, the lonely and shy girl decided to become an actress. In 1934 she debuted in the Swedish film Munkbrogreven...

Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western The Big Valley, wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys. But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the period from 1927 until 1964...

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, on August 29, 1915. Her mother died when she was only two and her father died when she was 12. She went to live with an elderly uncle. At 18, after school graduation, the lonely and shy girl decided to become an actress. In 1934 she debuted in the Swedish film Munkbrogreven...

A genuine model of sincerity, practicality and dignity in most of the roles she inhabited, actress Dorothy McGuire offered Tinseltown more talent than it probably knew what to do with. A quiet, passive beauty, she had a soothing quality to her open-faced looks and voice. She was a natural when he came...

Olivia Mary de Havilland was born to a British patent attorney and his wife on July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan. Her sister, Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her parents divorced when Olivia was just three years old, and she moved with her mother and sister to Saratoga...

A New York girl, born and raised, Judith Tuvim was the only child of parents Abe Tuvimand Helen. In school, she excelled in academics, winning several awards for her skills as a writer. While in her early teens, she developed what would become a life-long love for theater. In 1938, she made her professional debut as part of a nightclub act called "The Revuers"...

Her parents divorced when she was young. In her first year of high school, she gave up dance for acting. After a little time in John Murray Anderson's acting school, she was in the off-Broadway play "The Earth Between" (1923). Her Broadway debut in 1929 was in "Broken Dishes". Late in 1930, on a six-month Universal contract...

Vivian Mary Hartley was born on November 5, 1913, in Darjeeling, India, a strange place for one of the world's most celebrated actresses to be born. She was to live in this beautiful country for the next six years. Her parents wanted to go home to England but because of World War I they opted to stay in India...

Her stories now part of Hollywood folklore, Shelley Winters was one dame who showed plenty of chutzpah and knew exactly how to take the ball and run with it. This gutsy, uncompromising, perhaps overzealous film star was prone to playing the Hollywood game while exposing and criticizing it at the same time...

Deborah Kerr was born on 30 September 1921 in Helensburgh, Scotland, the daughter of Captain Arthur Kerr-Trimmer. She was educated at Northumberland House, Clifton, Bristol. She first performed at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London. She subsequently performed with the Oxford Repertory Company 1939-40...

Anna Magnani was born in Rome, Italy (not in Egypt, as some biographies claim), on March 7, 1908. She was the illegitimate child of Marina Magnani and an unknown father, often said to be from Alexandria, Egypt, but whom Anna herself claimed was from the Calabria region of Italy although she never knew his name...

Lana Turner was born Julia Jean Mildred Francis Turner in Wallace, Idaho. There is some discrepancy as to whether her birth date is February 8, 1920 or 1921. Lana herself said in her autobiography that she was one year younger (1921) than the records showed, but then this was a time where women, especially actresses...

The middle of seven children, she was named after the S.S. Rosalind at the suggestion of her father, a successful lawyer. After receiving a Catholic school education, she went to the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York, having convinced her mother that she intended to teach acting. In 1934...

The face of Simone Signoret on the Paris Metro movie posters in March 1982 looked even older than her 61 years. She was still a box office draw, but the film, L'étoile du Nord, would be her last theatrical release. She played the landlady. Signoret had a long film apprenticeship during World War II, mostly as an extra and occasionally getting to speak a single line...

Elizabeth Taylor is considered one of the last, if not the last major star, to have come out of the old Hollywood studio system. And not just any studio, the top of the heap: MGM. Her early movies, as a child in the early 1940s, starred such Hollywood luminaries as Orson Welles and Spencer Tracy...

Deborah Kerr was born on 30 September 1921 in Helensburgh, Scotland, the daughter of Captain Arthur Kerr-Trimmer. She was educated at Northumberland House, Clifton, Bristol. She first performed at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London. She subsequently performed with the Oxford Repertory Company 1939-40...

Audrey Hepburn was born on May 4, 1929 in Brussels, Belgium. She really was blue-blood from the beginning with her father, a wealthy English banker, and her mother, a Dutch baroness. After her parents divorced, Audrey went to London with her mother where she went to a private girls school. Later, when her mother moved back to the Netherlands...

Her parents divorced when she was young. In her first year of high school, she gave up dance for acting. After a little time in John Murray Anderson's acting school, she was in the off-Broadway play "The Earth Between" (1923). Her Broadway debut in 1929 was in "Broken Dishes". Late in 1930, on a six-month Universal contract...

Julie Andrews made her debut on Broadway in 1954 at age 19. Later, she worked in television until 1964 when her first successful movie as a protagonist was released: it was Mary Poppins by Robert Stevenson, for which she won an Oscar. In the following years, she worked with different directors in various genres (e.g....

Julie Andrews made her debut on Broadway in 1954 at age 19. Later, she worked in television until 1964 when her first successful movie as a protagonist was released: it was Mary Poppins by Robert Stevenson, for which she won an Oscar. In the following years, she worked with different directors in various genres (e.g....

Elizabeth Taylor is considered one of the last, if not the last major star, to have come out of the old Hollywood studio system. And not just any studio, the top of the heap: MGM. Her early movies, as a child in the early 1940s, starred such Hollywood luminaries as Orson Welles and Spencer Tracy...

Anna Maria Italiano was born in the Bronx, New York. She was the second of three daughters born to Michael Italiano (1906-2001) and Mildred DiNapoli (1908-2010). After changing her name to Anne Bancroft, she made her cinema debut in 1952's Don't Bother to Knock. Over the next five years, she appeared in a lot of forgettable movies as a supporting actress...

Audrey Hepburn was born on May 4, 1929 in Brussels, Belgium. She really was blue-blood from the beginning with her father, a wealthy English banker, and her mother, a Dutch baroness. After her parents divorced, Audrey went to London with her mother where she went to a private girls school. Later, when her mother moved back to the Netherlands...

Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer and one of the most successful personalities in show business. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1942, from a middle class Jewish family, she grew up dreaming to become an actress (or even an actress / conductor, as she happily describes her teenager years in one of her concerts)...

Genevieve Bujold spent her first twelve school years in Montreal's oppressive Hochelaga Convent where opportunities for self-expression were limited to making welcoming speeches for visiting clerics. As a child she felt 'as if I were in a long dark tunnel trying to convince myself that if I could ever get out there was light ahead'...

This alert and classy Britisher seemed poised for Hollywood stardom in the early 1970s. Although it wasn't meant to be, Janet Suzman has remained one of the more respected classical stage actresses of her time. Born in 1939, she was raised in a staunch, liberal family household in South Africa at a time when the country was confronted with the horrors of apartheid...

Cicely Tyson was raised in Harlem, New York by devoutly religious parents from the Caribbean island of Nevis. She was discovered by a fashion editor at Ebony magazine and, with her stunning looks, she quickly rose to the top of the modeling industry. In 1957, she began acting in Off-Broadway productions...

Born in Detroit, Ellen Burstyn worked a number of jobs before she became an actress. At 14, she was a short-order cook at a lunch counter. After graduating from Detroit's Cass Technical High School, she went to Texas to model and then to New York as a showgirl on The Jackie Gleason Show. From there, it was to Montreal as a nightclub dancer and then Broadway with her debut in "Fair Game (1957)"...

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, to Episcopal minister Robert Fletcher and his wife Estelle, both of whom were deaf, Louise Fletcher was introduced to performing at a young age by the aunt who taught her to speak. After graduating from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, she took a trip out west with her roommates...

Diane Keaton was a California native who studied Drama at Santa Ana College before dropping out to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. After appearing in summer stock for several months, she got her first major stage role in the Broadway rock musical "Hair". As understudy to the lead, she gained attention by not removing any of her clothing...

Born in New York City in 1937 to legendary screen star Henry Fonda and New York socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw, Jane Seymour Fonda was destined early to an uncommon and influential life in the limelight. Although she initially showed little inclination to follow her father's trade, she was prompted...

She has a wonderful, extremely engaging "feel good" quality about her, an innate warmth that makes you root for her whether she's playing a stubborn single mom, brittle prostitute, or strung-out alcoholic. Marsha Mason was a resoundingly respected and popular film actress of the 1970s and 1980s whose career skyrocketed in the bittersweet comedies/dramas of award-winning Neil Simon...