An unofficial list of actors and actresses who have won Academy Awards for playing characters based on real people.

Best actor

1929-30: George Arliss, "Disraeli" (Benjamin Disraeli)

1932-33: Charles Laughton, "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (Henry VIII)

1936: Paul Muni, "The Story of Louis Pasteur" (Louis Pasteur)

1938: Spencer Tracy, "Boys Town" (Father Flanagan)

1941: Gary Cooper, "Sergeant York" (Alvin C. York)

1942: James Cagney, "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (George M. Cohan)

1956: Yul Brynner, "The King and I" (The King, Mongkut)

1961: Maximilian Schell, "Judgment at Nuremberg" (Hans Rolfe)

1966: Paul Scofield, "A Man for All Seasons" (Sir Thomas More)

1970: George C. Scott, "Patton" (Gen. George S. Patton Jr.)

1971: Gene Hackman, "The French Connection" (Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, based on Eddie Egan)

1980: Robert De Niro, "Raging Bull" (Jake LaMotta)

1982: Ben Kingsley, "Gandhi" (Mahatma Gandhi)

1984: F. Murray Abraham, "Amadeus" (Antonio Salieri)

1989: Daniel Day-Lewis, "My Left Foot" (Christy Brown)

1990: Jeremy Irons, "Reversal of Fortune" (Claus Von Bulow)

1996: Geoffrey Rush, "Shine" (David Helfgott)

2002: Adrien Brody, "The Pianist" (Wladyslaw Szpilman)

2004: Jamie Foxx, "Ray" (Ray Charles)

2005: Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Capote" (Truman Capote)

Best actress

1936: Luise Rainer, "The Great Ziegfeld" (Anna Held)

1943: Jennifer Jones, "The Song of Bernadette" (Bernadette Soubirous)

1956: Ingrid Bergman, "Anastasia" (Anastasia)

1957: Joanne Woodward, "The Three Faces of Eve" (Eve, based on Chris Costner Sizemore)

1958: Susan Hayward, "I Want to Live!" (Barbara Graham)

1962: Anne Bancroft, "The Miracle Worker" (Annie Sullivan)

1968: Katharine Hepburn, "The Lion in Winter" (Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine) and Barbra Streisand, "Funny Girl" (Fanny Brice)

1980: Sissy Spacek, "Coal Miner's Daughter" (Loretta Lynn)

1995: Susan Sarandon, "Dead Man Walking" (Sister Helen Prejean)

1999: Hilary Swank, "Boys Don't Cry" (Brandon Teena)

2000: Julia Roberts, "Erin Brockovich" (Erin Brockovich)

2002: Nicole Kidman, "The Hours" (Virginia Woolf)

2003: Charlize Theron, "Monster" (Aileen Wuornos)

2005: Reese Witherspoon, "Walk the Line" (June Carter Cash)

Supporting actor

1937: Joseph Schildkraut, "The Life of Emile Zola" (Capt. Alfred Dreyfuss)

1940: Walter Brennan, "The Westerner" (Judge Roy Bean)

1952: Anthony Quinn, "Viva Zapata!" (Eufemio Zapata)

1956: Anthony Quinn, "Lust for Life" (Paul Gauguin)

1976: Jason Robards, "All the President's Men" (Ben Bradlee)

1978: Jason Robards, "Julia" (Dashiell Hammett)

1984: Haing S. Ngor, "The Killing Fields" (Dith Pran)

1994: Martin Landau, "Ed Wood" (Bela Lugosi)

2001: Jim Broadbent, "Iris" (John Bayley)

2002: Chris Cooper, "Adaptation" (John Laroche)

Supporting actress

1937: Alice Brady, "In Old Chicago" (Molly O'Leary)

1959: Shelley Winters, "The Diary of Anne Frank" (Mrs. Van Daan)

1962: Patty Duke, "The Miracle Worker" (Helen Keller)

1967: Estelle Parsons, "Bonnie and Clyde" (Blanche Barrow)

1977: Vanessa Redgrave, "Julia" (Lillian Hellman's friend, Julia, if she indeed existed)

1980: Mary Steenburgen, "Melvin and Howard" (Lynda Dummar)

1981: Maureen Stapleton, "Reds" (Emma Goldman)

1989: Brenda Fricker, "My Left Foot" (Bridget Brown, Christy Brown's mother)

1998: Judi Dench, "Shakespeare in Love" (Queen Elizabeth I)

2000: Marcia Gay Harden, "Pollock" (Lee Krasner)

2001: Jennifer Connelly, "A Beautiful Mind" (Alicia Nash)

2004: Cate Blanchett, "The Aviator" (Katharine Hepburn)

Source: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences