Talk:List of actors with Academy Award nominations

Description
This list was created to consolidate Academy Awards information from many different but related existing tables as well as film actor articles, and to allow sorting on any of the columns. The list includes both male and female film actors. in an attemptwith the 21st century listto create complementary tables of the most notable actors from the entire history of American films since the end of the silent film era.

Several items typically found in actor Infoboxessuch as place of birth/death, final resting place, marriages, children, politics and religionwere intentionally left out to reduce/eliminate horizontal scrolling especially on smaller screens, and so the table is not too overwhelming. Please don't add new columns without first discussing on this Talk page.

The list is sorted initially by name. first year as a professional actor and then by name which allows for more easily dividing it into multiple lists, by quarter- or half-centuries, if that becomes necessary. When adding names, please insert based on the year the person began working as an actor, along with the reason they were added. When removing names, please explain why they were removed. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 05:28, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Film column
Considering adding a film column (just 1 film per actor) with the 1st relevant film among the following order: 1st lead win, 1st lead nom, 1st supporting win, 1st supporting nom or, for those with WoF star but no Oscar nominations, one of their most critically acclaimed, financially successful or well-known films to date in which the actor played a lead role or significant supporting role. It seems that table columns with partial entries can be added without filling in all rows at one time, so it can be a multi-day project for the winter months, if no one raises an objection. Thoughts anyone? Brian W. Schaller (talk) 09:15, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Will begin adding films shortly as there was no reply and it's been more than a month. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 07:37, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The Film column is now complete. though anyone with extensive knowledge, or time for research, about actors with a Walk of Fame star but no Oscar nominations (those with a Group column entry = E) is welcome to change the current film to a more representative film, especially for the older actors with hundreds of film credits. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 04:30, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Not sure why this list exists.
We already have terrific articles for each of the Academy Awards for acting and we already have an article for Walk of Fame Stars, but I do not understand why there is this combined article for them. I understand combining the nominees to see to leading/supporting roles combined, but the walk of fame is a self-congratulatory honor given out to a very large number of actors which they are expected to pay for themselves. I would in no way consider the WOF a comprehensive list of the most famous actors or a particularly meaningful - and definitely not encyclopedic - basis for inclusion in anything. I just don't see the purpose of this intersection or the encyclopedia-worthiness of this list. Nor, with its immense size, any usefulness at all. At the least, I don't see why the 2016 nominees have the own section or are highlighted - just link to the relevant articles, but even then isn't this about everyone in general and not just this year? Additionally, how the fuck does cause of death have anything to do at all with acting careers? This is utterly meaningless here; most died in old age of (as we can see!) from a variety of causes, just like non-actors as well. I don't believe the list of Nobel Prize winners or the lists of authors give causes of death. Reywas92Talk 10:28, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Waited a couple days for others to comment... Thanks for leaving the first comment. Briefly, there's no other article that summarizes the most notable Hollywood film actors since the silent film era ended, without jumping around between the various award lists, and the actor articles. Here you see males and females, leading and supporting roles all combined in one place, and sortable across all columns, along with a few additional details (maybe some of which should have been left out, such as last year acting and cause of death, that were copied from the original spreadsheet version of this list). Since many notable actors have never been AA-nominated, the WoF actors were included to gather most of the remaining well-known actors. Of course, being a complete listing of WoF film stars necessitated adding many lesser-known actors who may be considered unworthy today (or any day by some people), and even so there are famous actors missing. Also, deceased famous actors not already included here may some day be considered for a posthumous WoF star, but never an AA, except "lifetime achievement" awards which are not included here. The 2016 section was only added around award time for reader's convenience and will be removed, leaving just the highlighting inside the list. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 18:30, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I've been on vacation the last couple weeks. I think a master list of AA-nominated actors/actresses is a great idea, as is an improved, sortable WoF list as you proposed there, but it's very much original research to combine them; I just don't see the direct connection or the basis that this would summarize all of the most notable famous actors as the two have very different criteria. Reywas92Talk 18:22, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Basically, the list grew from an attempt to gather all the most notable Hollywood film stars, using AA as the most notable film acting award, while WoF is arguably the most well-known (but not always the most carefully selected) acknowledgement of general popularity and lifetime achievement for Hollywood film actors (and others, though film actors are the large majority). Maybe there's a better way to gather such names. Maybe it's impossible to do (encyclopedically, with proper refs), and if so, maybe someone should just start removing all names with a WoF star as the only reason for inclusion, as well as the WoF column and the causes of death (possibly even the birth/death years, ages and first/last years of acting). That's a lot to cut out - up to 1/2 the columns and about 1/3 of the names. On the plus side, it'll sort quicker, fit better on narrow screens, and can be renamed to 'List of actors with Academy Award nominations' after merging in the 21st century list. Any other readers or editors care? Brian W. Schaller (talk) 21:56, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Abbrevs for cause of death
Planning to change all entries in the cause of death column to single letter abbreviations for space, consistency, less repetition of common causes and reduced morbidity, while keeping basic info for interested users to sort by general causes: A-accidents, C-complications from surgery, H-homicides, N-natural causes, S-suicides, U-undisclosed. Comments? Brian W. Schaller (talk) 19:39, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It should be removed, not abbreviated. Unless there's a particular connection between deaths and acting fame, especially because the causes are not necessarily any different than for society/rich/famous people in general, this is purely trivia. The deaths of Nobel laureates, people on the postage stamps of the United States, and Germany international footballers have just as little relevance to their careers either. Reywas92Talk 18:28, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm, the cause is usually the first question asked after being informed that someone you know, or know of, has died. To include at least an abbreviated cause of death for famous film actors, but not for the examples linked above whose worldwide name recognition is likely to be much smaller than most of the actors included here (esp. the 1st and 3rd examples, while the 2nd is a simple bulleted list), doesn't seem like it would be trivial info for the average reader of this list. However, maybe it is trivial to them. Any readers around to let us know? Brian W. Schaller (talk) 23:38, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Major changes
Planning some major changes for this list, but probably not before about 7 days have elapsed to allow some time for any serious objections to be raised by any readers or editors.

As noted above, the biggest changes would involve abbreviating or removing the 'Cause of death' column (possibly also removing the 'First/Last year acting' columns), and removing all WoF-only names (Group=E) from the table - possibly incorporating the removed names and copied entries of the AA-nominated actors with WoF stars into a new list article, as a subset of the main WoF list.

The names in this list would then only include AA-nominated actors and would be renamed and merged with the related 21st-century list into List of actors with Academy Award nominations.

The edits, though large and a bit complex, are easier than might be expected due mainly to the earlier addition of ~'s in all otherwise blank cells, which allows easy copy/paste (of the wikicode, using || as column delimiter) into a spreadsheet program for quicker sorting, re-arranging and removal of rows/columns. Actually, the only truly time-consuming things are abbreviating the CoD column entries (if that's even done, instead of simply removing the column) and fixing the incoming links - only about 100 or so.

After removing the WoF and 'First/Last year acting' columns (and cause of death), the new table rows would look something like: 'Film' as determined now, or possibly - in future edits - up to 5 AA films, with separate bulleted lists of film titles for the 33 actors w/more than 5 noms (the 'Group' column is removed as not necessary: only 2 'Groups' - Winners and non-winners - will remain and can be sorted out by the 'Wins' column).

That's the general plan. Comments? Brian W. Schaller (talk) 06:05, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Have now decided to simply remove the 'Cause of death' column along with the 'First/Last year acting' columns as those 3 pieces of data are often unreliably referenced or completely unreferenced in the actor articles (after having checked 100's of them over previous edits). Also, removing the column is much easier than abbreviating 100's of entries. The WoF column will be removed too, as will all of the WoF-only actors, and the 'Group' column, as already mentioned above. All other columns will remain. The article history will still have all the current info for those interested readers, unless the article is completely deleted. Currently planning to make all stated changes around middle of next week, unless there are reasonable objections before then. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 21:10, 6 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Proceeding with changes as there was no objection. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 03:30, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Original list can be found in the article history. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 01:27, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Support win before Lead nom
Hi. I changed the listed film for Viola Davis and Vanessa Redgrave to match what it says at the table key, but if the listed film column is to have one film, I think there is a strong argument for saying that a win (even in support) is more noteworthy than a nomination, especially since the majority of winners have (only!) one win. I would propose that the film listed for the people I mentioned in the edit summary (Caine, Cruz, Davis, Dench & Redgrave) would be their winning film (first of two support wins in Caine's case). The same would then apply to several others: Bale, Bardem, Binoche, Clooney, Hathaway, Hawn, Zellweger etc. L1975p (talk) 17:36, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the fixes. The original logic (if one can call it that) for film selection order: lead noms tend to (but not always) be for much more significant and memorable roles, and since (for all we know) the actor may have lost by only a vote or two, while supporting roles, even when won, are often (but not always) for roles with very little screen time and possibly were won only because it was a year with few memorable supporting parts. Anyway, there's only a bit over 30 actors who match the criteria, so if you wish to change them on the basis that all (or the majority of) supporting wins are more-or-less equal in quality (whatever that means) and are better than all non-winning lead noms for the same actor, feel free to go ahead and change them. Note that all nominated films may be added in future edits anyway, as additional columns and separate bulleted lists when more than 5 films (though that work was already done in another list so it might be considered a waste of time and space to duplicate that effort here). Brian W. Schaller (talk) 02:10, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for replying. I take some of your points but regardless of how close the voting was I think an Oscar win will always be more notable than a nomination and that if a film is to be listed, where possible, it should be a winning one. I also agree that it would be a waste of time and space to add additional nominated films to this page as that info already exists on the List of actors with two or more Academy Award nominations in acting categories page, which is an established page with around 200,000 views in the last 18 months and has every film listed for those with two or more nominations (although as the creator of that page I could be considered biased). L1975p (talk) 09:02, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Chart
OK. This Chart is good. Thanks to those who did a lot of work. But ... it's impossible to read / decipher; and it leaves out some of the most pertinent information. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:30, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What's impossible to read or decipher, the L:S (lead/supporting details) column? Yes, that column is a bit difficult, but not impossible, to follow at first. Combining the numbers into one column eliminated a large number of entries with only 0's and 1's, if six separate columns had been used instead (lead noms/wins & supporting noms/wins, along with the total noms/wins across both categories) - it looked like binary computer code when I tried it that way. What is missing that would be most useful to a reader? Hope it has nothing to do with politics, religion, spouses, children, places of birth, or causes of death. Details on multiple noms/wins are covered by another AA list article, so that info is mostly left out here. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 05:29, 12 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi. Are you the editor who created the chart?  So, first, thanks for the hard work.  I know how difficult and time-consuming these charts can be.  Now, I am only offering constructive criticism.  Let me say that I am a big Academy Awards "fan" and probably spend 90% of my Wikipedia time on Academy Award type articles.  So, my comments / questions:


 * "Age" ... is this the age that the person is right now? Or the age when they got their Oscar?  I think it's the former, but it should be the latter.   I'd want to know (for example) the age that Tatum O'Neal got her Oscar; not how old Tatum O'Neal is today.   (The latter fact can be found at anybody's Wikipedia bio article.)


 * The "L/S" column is simply indecipherable. It is not at all intuitive.  It is too much "work".  The average reader will be befuddled by all those symbols and codes.  They are simply not intuitive and/or user-friendly.


 * The "Film" column ... what on earth is this film?  The first Oscar they received?   The last Oscar they received?   Is it a nomination or an actual Oscar award?   You have a code (legend) that talks about "order".  But I cannot even comprehend what that "legend" means?  So, I am not alone in my befuddlement.  For example, Meryl Streep has a million nominations and awards.  Why is Sophie's Choice relevant, over any others?  Katharine Hepburn, ditto.  Anyone with multiple awards (or noms), ditto.  Why is this "one film" so important?  You are excluding a lot of pertinent info.  This renders this column meaningless.  Why even have it?


 * "First and Last" ... what is this? How is it relevant?


 * I am sorry. I am simply offering constructive criticism.  This Chart is just too hard to "figure out" ... and I am a person who knows/loves this type of information.  It's like reading something in Japanese.  Not at all intuitive for the average reader.  And you are leaving out pertinent info; but adding in impertinent info.


 * That's my opinion. Thanks.  Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:42, 12 August 2019 (UTC)


 * If I were reading this article (Chart), this is what I would want to know for each winner/nominee: Name, date of birth, year/ceremony of Oscar nomination, whether it was just a nomination or if it was also an award; age at time of award; role (lead/support); and film.  Also, as you reference above, several columns (lead noms;  support noms;  lead awards;  support awards;  total noms;  total awards;  etc.)  Plus, "actor" or "actress".  Perhaps one or two other basic information pieces.  Maybe a "notations" as a last column.  The main problem I see with your chart is:  it works fine for a single individual nomination or award; but not for when a person has multiple noms/awards.  And very many of these people, in fact, do have multiple noms/awards (in different years).  It seems like the Chart is trying to fit a square piece into a round hole.   Thanks.   Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:59, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all the feedback. Yes, I created this list, though several other editors have done updates around awards time, without any major problems, so they seem to have understood even the L:S column, as well as the other columns, without me explaining it further. Probably would help though to expand the (very brief) column headings, to two lines in some cases (and the associated hover text, which you may not have noticed), and the table key details also, so I'll try that first; however, I don't think that separating the L:S details to 4 columns would improve the article, or that adding the ages at (1st?) award win (or nom?) is generally useful when it's only the superlative ages that are the most likely to be desired (which could be footnoted here) and they are already mentioned in the 4 AA actor/actress list articles, as well as another article which you created, all of which are linked in "See also". The missing film details for multiple noms could be added as footnotes, or maybe a second table. The table is already wide, so adding many more columns would not be wise, especially considering the large number of rows. Yes, it's a complex and large table (like any database) that's a bit more difficult than the average table here, but certainly not impossible to utilize, assuming the reader sees the table key, reads it, and reads the sorting examples, or already knows how to sort tables. Unfortunately, we'll never know what any given reader will see or ignore, understand or not understand. Brian W. Schaller (talk) 07:55, 13 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reply. As I said, these are just constructive criticisms on my part.  Yes, perhaps you can "reword" the column headings.  And perhaps you can do some clarifications on the "key" / "legend" box.  Those are good starts, which would be useful.  Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 13:41, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Full and completely detailed list
I recently discovered this page and thought I'd chip in by saying that for a couple of years now in my sandbox, I have been keeping a much more complete list of every Oscar nominated actor, their films, and roles. I recognize that utilizing the format in my sandbox would make this page very large and perhaps cumbersome, but I have divided it into letters. I don't know if anyone would like to take a look at my list/chart and offer some feedback as to whether or not it'd be a better, more detailed, and more comprehensive list for this page than the one that is already here. While the one that is here is certainly more condensed, I feel that it can be a little confusing at times and not as comprehensive. Thanks for the feedback! Coulraphobic123 (talk) 00:57, 6 May 2024 (UTC)