And the Oscar Does Not Go To...
by Nate76 | created - 27 Feb 2016 | updated - 01 Mar 2016 | PublicThis is a list of actors who have been nominated for Oscars four or more times, but have never won.
1. Peter O'Toole
Actor | Lawrence of Arabia
A leading man of prodigious talents, Peter O'Toole was born and raised in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, the son of Constance Jane Eliot (Ferguson), a Scottish nurse, and Patrick Joseph O'Toole, an Irish metal plater, football player and racecourse bookmaker. Upon leaving school, he decided to become a...
8 Losses
1962 - Lawrence of Arabia (lost to Gregory Peck)
1964 - Becket (lost to Rex Harrison)
1968 - The Lion in Winter (lost to Cliff Robertson)
1969 - Goodbye, Mr. Chips (lost to John Wayne)
1972 - The Ruling Class (lost to Marlon Brando)
1980 - The Stunt Man (lost to Robert De Niro)
1982 - My Favorite Year (lost to Ben Kingsley)
2006 - Venus (lost to Forest Whitaker)
2. Richard Burton
Actor | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Probably best-remembered for his turbulent personal life with Elizabeth Taylor (whom he married twice), Richard Burton was nonetheless also regarded as an often brilliant British actor of the post-WWII period.
Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in 1925 into a Welsh (Cymraeg)-speaking family in ...
7 Losses
1952 - My Cousin Rachel (lost to Anthony Quinn)
1953 - The Robe (lost to William Holden)
1964 - Becket (lost to Rex Harrison)
1965 - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (lost to Lee Marvin)
1966 - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (lost to Paul Scofield)
1969 - Anne of the Thousand Days (lost to John Wayne)
1977 - Equus (lost to Richard Dreyfuss)
3. Glenn Close
Actress | Fatal Attraction
Eight time Academy Award-nominated actress Glenn Close was born and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. She is the daughter of Elizabeth Mary H. "Bettine" (Moore) and William Taliaferro Close (William Close), a prominent doctor. Both of her parents were from upper-class families.
Glenn was a noted ...
6 Losses
1982 - The World According to Garp (lost to Jessica Lange)
1983 - The Big Chill (lost to Linda Hunt)
1984 - The Natural (lost to Peggy Ashcroft)
1987 - Fatal Attraction (lost to Cher)
1988 - Dangerous Liaisons (lost to Jodie Foster)
2011 - Albert Nobbs (lost to Meryl Streep)
4. Deborah Kerr
Actress | The King and I
Deborah Jane Trimmer was born on 30 September 1921 in Glasgow, 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 ...
6 Losses
1949 - Edward, My Son (lost to Olivia de Havilland)
1953 - From Here to Eternity (lost to Audrey Hepburn)
1956 - The King and I (lost to Ingrid Bergman)
1957 - Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (lost to Joanne Woodward)
1958 - Separate Tables (lost to Susan Hayward)
1960 - The Sundowners (lost to Elizabeth Taylor)
5. Thelma Ritter
Actress | Rear Window
Thelma Ritter appeared in high school plays and was trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In the 1940s she worked in radio. Her movie career was started with a bit part in the 1946 Miracle on 34th Street (1947). In the movie she played a weary Xmas shopper. Her performance in the short ...
6 Losses
1950 - All About Eve (lost to Josephine Hull)
1951 - The Mating Season (lost to Kim Hunter)
1952 - With a Song in My Heart (lost to Gloria Grahame)
1953 - Pickup on South Street (lost to Donna Reed)
1959 - Pillow Talk (lost to Shelley Winters)
1962 - Birdman of Alcatraz (lost to Patty Duke)
6. Amy Adams
Actress | Arrival
Amy Lou Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy, to American parents, Kathryn (Hicken) and Richard Kent Adams, a U.S. serviceman who was stationed at Caserma Ederle in Italy at the time. She was raised in a Mormon family of seven children in Castle Rock, Colorado, and has English, as well as ...
5 Losses
2005 - Junebug (lost to Rachel Weisz)
2008 - Doubt (lost to Penélope Cruz)
2010 - The Fighter (lost to Melissa Leo)
2012 - The Master (lost to Anne Hathaway)
2013 - American Hustle (lost to Cate Blanchett)
7. Irene Dunne
Actress | The Awful Truth
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...
5 Losses
1931 - Cimarron (lost to Marie Dressler)
1936 - Theodora Goes Wild (lost to Luise Rainer)
1937 - The Awful Truth (lost to Luise Rainer AGAIN)
1939 - Love Affair (lost to Vivien Leigh)
1948 - I Remember Mama (lost to Jane Wyman)
8. Albert Finney
Actor | Murder on the Orient Express
The son of a Lancashire bookmaker, Albert Finney came to motion pictures via the theatre. In 1956, he won a scholarship to RADA where his fellow alumni included Peter O'Toole and Alan Bates. He joined the Birmingham Repertory where he excelled in plays by William Shakespeare. A member of the Royal ...
5 Losses
1963 - Tom Jones (lost to Sidney Poitier)
1974 - Murder on the Orient Express (lost to Art Carney)
1983 - The Dresser (lost to Robert Duvall)
1984 - Under the Volcano (lost to F. Murray Abraham)
2000 - Erin Brockovich (lost to Benicio del Toro)
9. Arthur Kennedy
Actor | Lawrence of Arabia
Arthur Kennedy, one of the premier character actors in American film from the late 1940s through the early 1960s, achieved fame in the role of Biff in Elia Kazan's historic production of Arthur Miller's Pultizer-Prize winning play "Death of a Salesman." Although he was not selected to recreate the ...
5 Losses
1949 - Champion (lost to Dean Jagger)
1951 - Bright Victory (lost to Humphrey Bogart)
1955 - Trial (lost to Jack Lemmon)
1957 - Peyton Place (lost to Red Buttons)
1958 - Some Came Running (lost to Burl Ives)
10. Warren Beatty
Actor | Reds
Since starring in his first film, Splendor in the Grass (1961), Warren Beatty has been said to have demonstrated a greater longevity in movies than any actor of his generation. Few people have taken so many responsibilities for all phases of the production of films as producer, director, writer, ...
4 Losses
1967 - Bonnie and Clyde (lost to Rod Steiger)
1978 - Heaven Can Wait (lost to Jon Voight)
1981 - Reds (lost to Henry Fonda)
1991 - Bugsy (lost to Anthony Hopkins)
(Warren Beatty has received 14 Oscar nominations in total, but only four were for acting.)
11. Jane Alexander
Actress | Kramer vs. Kramer
Angular in features, reserved in demeanor and more-or-less plaintive in appearance, actress Jane Alexander has played down the glamour card for the most part. Her true brilliance has come from the remarkable range and depth of her talent. Heralded as one of the finest 70s actresses to arrive in ...
4 Losses
1970 - The Great White Hope (lost to Glenda Jackson)
1976 - All the President's Men (lost to Beatrice Straight)
1979 - Kramer vs. Kramer (lost to Meryl Streep)
1983 - Testament (lost to Shirley MacLaine)
12. Annette Bening
Actress | American Beauty
Annette Bening was born on May 29, 1958 in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of four children. Her family moved to California when she was young, and she grew up there. She graduated from San Francisco State University and began her acting career with the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, ...
4 Losses
1990 - The Grifters (lost to Whoopi Goldberg)
1999 - American Beauty (lost to Hilary Swank)
2004 - Being Julia (lost to Hilary Swank AGAIN)
2010 - The Kids Are All Right (lost to Natalie Portman)
13. Charles Boyer
Actor | Gaslight
Charles Boyer studied philosophy before he went to the theater where he gave his debut in 1920. Although he had at first no intentions to pursue a career at the movies (his first movie was Man of the Sea (1920) by Marcel L'Herbier) he used his chance in Hollywood after several filming stations all ...
4 Losses
1937 - Conquest (lost to Spencer Tracy)
1938 - Algiers (lost Spencer Tracy AGAIN)
1944 - Gaslight (lost to Bing Crosby)
1961 - Fanny (lost to Maximilian Schell)
14. Montgomery Clift
Actor | From Here to Eternity
Edward Montgomery Clift (nicknamed 'Monty' his entire life) was born on October 17, 1920 in Omaha, Nebraska, just after his twin sister Roberta (1920-2014) and eighteen months after his brother Brooks Clift. He was the son of Ethel "Sunny" Anderson (Fogg; 1888-1988) and William Brooks Clift (1886-...
4 Losses
1948 - The Search (lost to Laurence Olivier)
1951 - A Place in the Sun (lost to Humphrey Bogart)
1953 - From Here to Eternity (lost to William Holden)
1961 - Judgement at Nuremberg (lost to George Chakiris)
15. Ed Harris
Actor | Appaloosa
By transforming into his characters and pulling the audience in, Ed Harris has earned a reputation as one of the most talented actors of our time.
Ed Harris was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, to Margaret (Sholl), a travel agent, and Robert Lee Harris, a bookstore worker who also sang professionally. ...
4 Losses
1995 - Apollo 13 (lost to Kevin Spacey)
1998 - The Truman Show (lost to James Coburn)
2000 - Pollock (lost to Russell Crowe)
2002 - The Hours (lost to Chris Cooper)
16. Marsha Mason
Actress | The Goodbye Girl
Marsha Mason 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. She was a resoundingly respected and popular film actress of the 1970s and 1980s ...
4 Losses
1973 - Cinderella Liberty (lost to Glenda Jackson)
1977 - The Goodbye Girl (lost to Diane Keaton)
1979 - Chapter Two (lost to Sally Field)
1981 - Only When I Laugh (lost to Katharine Hepburn)
17. Agnes Moorehead
Actress | The Magnificent Ambersons
Agnes was born of Anglo-Irish ancestry near Boston, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister (her mother was a mezzo-soprano) who encouraged her to perform in church pageants. Aged three, she sang 'The Lord is my Shepherd' on a public stage and seven years later joined the St. Louis Municipal Opera ...
4 Losses
1942 - The Magnificent Ambersons (lost to Teresa Wright)
1944 - Mrs. Parkington (lost to Ethel Barrymore)
1948 - Johnny Belinda (lost to Claire Trevor)
1964 - Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (lost to Lila Kedrova)
18. Claude Rains
Actor | Casablanca
William Claude Rains, born in the Clapham area of London, was the son of the British stage actor Frederick Rains. The younger Rains followed, making his stage debut at the age of eleven in "Nell of Old Drury." Growing up in the world of theater, he saw not only acting up close but the down-to-earth...
4 Losses
1939 - Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (lost to Thomas Mitchell)
1943 - Casablanca (lost to Charles Coburn)
1944 - Mr. Skeffington (lost to Barry Fitzgerald)
1946 - Notorious (lost to Harold Russell)
19. Mickey Rooney
Actor | It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Mickey Rooney was born Joe Yule Jr. on September 23, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. He first took the stage as a toddler in his parents vaudeville act at 17 months old. He made his first film appearance in 1926. The following year, he played the lead character in the first Mickey McGuire short film. ...
4 Losses
1939 - Babes in Arms (lost to Robert Donat)
1943 - The Human Comedy (lost to Paul Lukas)
1956 - The Bold and the Brave (lost to Anthony Quinn)
1979 - The Black Stallion (lost to Melvyn Douglas)
20. Rosalind Russell
Actress | Auntie Mame
The middle of seven children, she was named, not for the heroine of "As You Like It" but for the S.S. Rosalind on which her parents had sailed, 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 ...
4 Losses
1942 - My Sister Eileen (lost to Greer Garson)
1946 - Sister Kenny (lost to Olivia de Havilland)
1947 - Mourning Becomes Electra (lost to Loretta Young)
1958 - Auntie Mame (lost to Susan Hayward)
21. Barbara Stanwyck
Actress | Double Indemnity
Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western The Big Valley (1965), wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys (1985). But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the ...
4 Losses
1937 - Stella Dallas (lost to Luise Rainer)
1941 - Ball of Fire (lost to Joan Fontaine)
1944 - Double Indemnity (lost to Ingrid Bergman)
1948 - Sorry, Wrong Number (lost to Jane Wyman)
Tell Your Friends