Biographical dramas spin film gold
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An unofficial list of actors and actresses who have won Academy Awards for playing characters based on real people.
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)
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)
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)
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
First Published January 20, 2007 12:00 am
