No country outside the United States has won more Academy Awards than Great Britain. To date, 376 Oscars have gone to films with a UK connection and the number is bound to rise at the 92nd annual ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on 9 February, as Brits have picked up another 27 nominations. Cinema Paradiso takes a look at the homegrown actresses who have earned the respect of their peers over the last nine decades.
It's one of the quirks of nationality that two of Britain's most successful Oscar actresses were born outside the United Kingdom, while another two-time winner was usually considered American despite having been born here. Northern Ireland can also boast an Oscar feat that has only been matched by Bette Davis, while Scotland was the birthplace of the UK actress with the most unconverted nominations. One thing is, clear, however, British actresses have produced some astonishing performances and the majority of them are available to rent from Cinema Paradiso.
Best Actress - 1920s - 1950s
Merle Oberon remains the first British nominee to have been born in India, a distinction she shares with Vivien Leigh, who would become the first British winner to hail from the subcontinent after she surprised no one in taking the Oscar for Best Actress for her career-changing performance as Scarlett O'Hara in Victor Fleming and producer David O. Selznick's blockbuster adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's bestseller, Gone With the Wind (1939).
Cheshire native Wendy Hiller became the first mainland nominee to come from outside London when she was hailed for her turn as Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle in Anthony Asquith's adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (1938). The following year saw Belfast-born Greer Garson snag the first of her seven nominations for Best Actress in what was essentially the supporting role of teacher's wife Katherine Bridges in Sam Wood's delightful version of James Hilton's novel, Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), which earned Robert Donat the Academy Award for Best Actor.
As war raged across Europe, a pair of Tokyo-born sisters with British parents vied with Garson in dominating the category. It is possible to see Garson's Oscar-winning performance as Kent housewife Kay Miniver in the William Wyler flag-waver based on Jan Struther's popular newspaper column, Mrs Miniver (1942). Famously, Garson gave the longest acceptance speech on record, which clocked in at five minutes and 30 seconds although the surviving film footage only contains the edited highlights.
Thankfully, Cinema Paradiso users can revel in the talents of siblings Olivia De Havilland and Joan Fontaine. Despite her mother considering her a dreadful actress, Fontaine was the first of the pair to be recognised by the Academy, as she followed her nomination as The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's brooding adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca (1940) by winning the Oscar as Lina McLaidlaw Aysgarth opposite a decidedly unnerving Cary Grant in the same director's Suspicion (1941).
What must have made the victory so sweet in retrospect was that Fontaine pipped her older sister to the title, De Havilland had been nominated for her work as Emmy Brown, the teacher targeted by Romanian gigolo Georges Iscovescu (Charles Boyer), in Mitchell Leisen's border melodrama, Hold Back the Dawn (1941). However, while Fontaine had to settle for a nomination for her efforts opposite Boyer in Edmund Goulding's The Constant Nymph (1943), De Havilland sandwiched her own nomination as novelist Virginia Stuart Cunningham in Anatole Litvak's searing study of mental illness, The Snake Pit (1948), with a pair of wins for playing selfless single mother Josephine Norris in Mitchell Leisen's To Each His Own (1946) and Catherine Sloper in The Heiress (1949), William Wyler's simmering interpretation of Henry James's lauded novel, Washington Square.
De Havilland's first win came at the expense of Celia Johnson, who had excelled as Laura Jesson opposite Trevor Howard's Dr Alec Harvey in David Lean's tear-jerking take on Noël Coward's Brief Encounter (1945). The second De Havilland success deprived Deborah Kerr of the award for her sterling work as powerless mother Evelyn Arnold opposite Spencer Tracy's domestic tyrant in Edward Dmytryk's Edward, My Son (1949). But this wouldn't be the last Oscar night reverse that the Helensburgh-born actress would experience over the next quarter-century.
Indeed, in the 1950s alone, Kerr would be pipped at the post on four occasions. Despite frolicking in the surf with Burt Lancaster as unfaithful service wife Karen Holmes in Fred Zinnemann's adaptation of James Jones's Pearl Harbor bestseller, From Here to Eternity, Kerr lost out to the Belgian-born, but half-English Audrey Hepburn for her endearing display of demure rebelliousness as Princess Ann opposite Gregory Peck's American reporter in William Wyler's iconic romcom, Roman Holiday (both 1953).
Kerr and Hepburn would be linked in misfortune by ghost singer Marni Nixon, who provided the vocals for the former as Anna Leonowens in Walter Lang's The King and I (1956) and the latter as Eliza Doolittle in George Cukor's My Fair Lady (1964). The fact that Kerr was nominated for Best Actress while Hepburn was overlooked altogether for 'stealing' the role that Julie Andrews had created on stage would have proved scant consolation. And Kerr had to look pleased for two further nominees when her peers voted against her expert performances as Irish nun Sister Angela opposite Robert Mitchum's brusque American soldier in John Huston's Pacific War saga, Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (1957), and as West Hampshire hotel owner's daughter Sibyl Railton-Bell in Separate Tables (1958), Delbert Mann's screen version of the Terence Rattigan play that earned co-star David Niven the Oscar for Best Actor.
While Vivien Leigh followed De Havilland in doubling up for her harrowing performance as Blanche DuBois in Elia Kazan's epochal take on Tennessee Williams's Broadway smash, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Kerr wasn't alone in suffering multiple disappointments in the 1950s as Audrey Hepburn missed out twice. Firstly, as chauffeur's daughter Sabrina Fairchild winning the hearts of contrasting brothers Linus (Humphrey Bogart) and David Larrabee (William Holden) in Sabrina (1954), Billy Wilder's adaptation of Samuel A. Taylor's play, Sabrina Fair. Secondly, as Sister Luke questioning her vocation while nursing alongside Dr Forunati (Peter Finch) in a hospital in the Belgian Congo in Fred Zinnemann's take on The Nun's Story (1959), which novelist Kathryn Hulme had based on the life of Gabrielle van der Mal.
Born in 1932 to an American art dealer and his retired stage actress wife, Elizabeth Taylor spent the first seven years of her life in London. As she held dual citizenship, she has been seized upon by British Oscarologists, as her achievements considerably boost the UK's win tallies. Taylor had to be content with three unsuccessful nominations in the 1950s, however, as she played Southern belle Susanna Drake in Edward Dmytryk's adaptation of Ross Hockridge, Jr.'s novel, Raintree County (1957); neglected wife Margaret Pollitt in Richard Brooks's version of the simmering Tennessee Williams stage play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958); and the psychologically scarred Catherine Holly in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's interpretation of another choice slice of Williams's Southern Gothic, Suddenly, Last Summer (1959).
Best Actress - 1960s - 1980s
Deborah Kerr's losing streak continued into the 1960s when she received her sixth and final nomination for her typically accomplished performance as sheep farmer's wife Ida Carmody in Fred Zinnemann's adaptation of Jon Cleary's Australian bestseller, The Sundowners. Helping her drown her sorrows was Greer Garson, who became the most-nominated actress in Oscar history for playing First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in Vincent J. Donehue's take on Dore Schary's Tony Award-winning Broadway play, Sunrise At Campobello.
They were beaten by Elizabeth Taylor, in spite of the fact that she detested the role of call girl Gloria Wandrous in Daniel Mann's version of John O'Hara's novel, BUtterfield 8 (all 1960). However, Taylor was far happier with her triumph as Martha, the university president's daughter at loggerheads with her history professor husband in Mike Nichols's fizzing adaptation of Edward Albee's play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which also drew nominations for Richard Burton and George Segal, as George and Nick, while Sandy Dennis took the Best Supporting prize for her skittish display as the tipsy Honey.
This was a bumper decade for British actresses in Hollywood. Audrey Hepburn might not have won in her iconic little black dress as Holly Golightly or for her skilled display as blind woman Susy Hendrix but Julie Andrews won Best Actress for her deceptive display as the spit spot governess in Mary Poppins (1964), Robert Stevenson's Disney variation on the writings of Pamela Travers.
Andrews passed on her crown to Julie Christie for her modish turn as rising modelling star Diana Scott, who exploits the three men in her life en route to the top in John Schlesinger's cautionary hymn to the Swinging Sixties, Darling (1965). Intriguingly blending personality traits, Maggie Smith completed the British roll of honour as the 1930s Scottish schoolmistress imparting dubious wisdom to the girls she seeks to turn into the crème de la crème in Ronald Neame's adept adaptation of Muriel Spark's satirical novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969).
The third British nominee from 1965 was Golden Globe winner Samantha Eggar, whose work as kidnap victim Miranda Gray in the John Fowles adaptation, The Collector, made her one of the 36 performers guided to an Oscar nomination by German-born director William Wyler. This would prove to be Eggar's sole brush with the Academy Award for Best Actress, however, and the same would also be true for Dame Edith Evans and Jean Simmons. But a couple of 1966 nominations proved to be just the beginning for another pair of British sisters, Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave, who were the daughters of the Oscar-nominated Michael Redgrave and his respected actress wife, Rachel Kempson.
Six years younger than her sibling, Lynn was ebulliently empathetic as pudgy aspiring musician Georgina Parkin in Silvio Narizzano's lively reworking of Margaret Forster's novel, Georgy Girl. Married to Oscar-winning director Tony Richardson, Vanessa followed her recognition for playing divorcée Leonie Delt struggling to deal with the eccentric behaviour of her ex-husband (David Warner) in Karel Reisz's Morgan: A Suitable Case For Treatment by reuniting with the same director to play tragic modern dance pioneer, Isadora Duncan, in Isadora (1968).
Vanessa would also receive recognition for her efforts in the title role of Charles Jarrott's Mary, Queen of Scots (1971). But she would be eclipsed over the course of the decade by her co-star, Glenda Jackson, who had already won the Academy Award for Best Actress by pipping Sarah Miles in David Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970) with her performance as Gudrun Brangwen in Ken Russell's bold revision of DH Lawrence's Women in Love (1969). Indeed, Jackson and Redgrave were among the four British actresses to be nominated in the category in 1971, with Julie Christie's gritty display as Constance Miller opposite Warren Beatty in Robert Altman's revisionist Western, McCabe & Mrs Miller. Somewhat typically, however, the sole American on the ballot prevailed, although Jane Fonda was pretty mesmeric as prostitute Bree Daniels in Alan J. Pakula's seedy thriller, Klute.
After Maggie Smith had failed to charm the Academy with her brave effort to replace Katharine Hepburn in the role of Augusta Bertram in George Cukor's take on Graham Greene's Travels With My Aunt (1972), the Birkonian Jackson become the first born, bred and resident British woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, when she bantered to brilliant effect with George Segal, as divorced mother of two Vickie Allessio in Melvin Frank's literate rom-com, A Touch of Class (1973). Before switching careers to become a Labour MP, Jackson was nominated again for her potent performance as Hedda Gabler in Hedda (1975), Trevor Nunn's striking re-staging of Henrik Ibsen's play.
After two such exciting decades, the 1980s proved something of a disappointment, as Brits only managed to accrue four nominations for Best Actress in the entire decade. Julies Andrews and Walters showed well towards the mid-80s, as the former crossed-dressed to impress as Victoria Grant and her alter ego Viktor Grazinski in Blake Edwards's Victor/Victoria (1982) and the latter charmed as the Liverpudlian hairdresser trying to improve herself by signing up to an Open University course in English Literature in Lewis Gilbert's Educating Rita (1983).
Six years later, another Gilbert adaptation of a Willy Russell play would earn Pauline Collins a nomination for her sparky turn as a bored fortysomething Scouse housewife heading to Greece for some sun and fun in Shirley Valentine. But she lost out on the big night to Jessica Tandy, who, at the age of 80 years and 292 days, became the oldest ever winner of the Best Actress award for her primly clipped display as Daisy Werthan, a retired and widowed Jewish schoolteacher who defies convention by hiring black chauffeur Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman) in 1940s Atlanta in Fred Schepisi's well-intentioned staging of Albert Uhry's race relations play, Driving Miss Daisy (both 1989).
Best Actress - 1990s - 2020s
Despite racking up 38 nominations over the last three decades, British stars have only nabbed five Best Actress awards and one of them was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina and only acquired a UK passport three years before her victory in order to honour her late Scottish mother. The 1990s proved particularly frustrating, with Emma Thompson providing the sole victor for her intelligent rendering of Margaret Schlegel's moral confusion in Merchant Ivory's typically astute adaptation of EM Forster's Howards End (1992). Thompson would also land the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for her 1995 interpretation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. But, as was the case with her nuanced display as Sarah Kenton in James Ivory's reading of Kazuo Ishiguro's Booker-winning The Remains of the Day (1993), Thompson's performance as Elinor Dashwood in Ang Lee's Berlin Golden Bear winner was overlooked and she has not been nominated in this category since.
The decade also saw a clutch of first-time nominations, with the versatile Miranda Richardson conveying the emotional anguish of poet TS Eliot's first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood, opposite Willem Dafoe in Brian Gilbert's opening out of Michael Hastings's stage play, Tom & Viv (1994). Two years later, Brenda Blethyn and Kristin Scott Thomas were nominated for their very different performances as Cynthia Rose Purley, the white working-class woman who is traced by the black daughter she had given up for adoption in Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies, and as Katharine Clifton, the Oxford graduate who falls for a Hungarian cartographer in 1930s Egypt in Anthony Minghella's Best Picture-winning adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's bestseller, The English Patient (both 1996). Respective co-stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste (as bourgeois optometrist Hortense Cumberbatch) and Juliette Binoche faced off in the Best Supporting category, with the latter winning as Hana, the French-Canadian nurse who tends to a seriously burnt amnesiac during the last days of the World War II battle for Italy.
Completing the quartet of one-time nominees was Janet McTeer, who was splendidly blowsy as Southern single mom Mary Jo Walker, who heads to California to find a new daddy for 12 year-old daughter Ava (Kimberly J. Brown) in Gavin O'Connor's Tumbleweeds (1999), which was inspired by the memories of the director's co-scenarist wife, Angela Shelton. Another first-time nominee, Emily Watson, followed up her harrowing performance as Bess McNeill, the psychologically fragile Scottish oil rig worker's wife in Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves (1996), with an equally devastating display as Jaqueline Du Pré, the world-renowned cellist who succumbed to multiple sclerosis, in Anand Tucker's Hilary and Jackie (1998). Somewhat surprisingly, Watson hasn't been nominated since, but four other 90s debutants have become regulars at the annual award ceremony.
Up against Helena Bonham Carter for her work as Kate Croy in Iain Softley's adaptation of Henry James's The Wings of the Dove and Julie Christe for her turn as Phyllis Hart in Alan Rudolph's Afterglow, Judi Dench was feted for her chemistry with Billy Connolly as Queen Victoria in John Madden's Mrs Brown (all 1997). This year also saw Kate Winslet nominated for her breakthrough performance as Rose DeWitt Bukater in James Cameron's 11-time winner, Titanic. But, as in the previous instance when four Brits were cited, the Oscar went to the sole American in the field, as Helen Hunt was rewarded for keeping stride with Best Actor winner Jack Nicholson in James L. Brooks's As Good As It Gets (all 1997).
The last UK-linked nominee of the 20th century was Julianne Moore, although she was not yet being billed as an American-British actress when she was hailed for her work as Sarah Miles in Neil Jordan's remake of the Graham Greene novel, The End of the Affair (1999). Moore would be nommed again for her classy display as model 1950s Connecticut homemaker, Cathy Whitaker, in Todd Haynes's Far From Heaven (2002) before she took home the statuette for her deeply moving portrayal of Alice Howland, the Columbia University linguistics professor who is diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer's Disease in Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's adaptation of Lisa Genova's admired novel, Still Alice (2014).
Back in the noughties, however, the scene was dominated by Judi Dench, Kate Winslet and Helen Mirren. Dench anticipated Moore's performance with her equally sensitive portrayal as Alzheimer-stricken novelist Iris Murdoch in Richard Eyre's biopic, Iris (2001), which also drew a Best Supporting nod for Winslet as the younger Murdoch, as well as a Best Actor citation for Jim Broadbent as her critic husband, John Bayley. Stephen Frears's Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) afforded Dench the opportunity to play the more flamboyant character of Laura Forster-Henderson, who had founded the infamous Windmill Theatre in Soho in the 1930s. However, Dench produced another contrasting turn as history teacher Barbara Covett suspecting colleague Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) of conducting an inappropriate relationship with a student at their London comprehensive in Richard Eyre's adaptation of Zoë Heller's bestseller, Notes on a Scandal (2008).
Kate Winslet was also nominated three times during the decade. She missed out for her work alongside Jim Carrey as Long Island free-spirit Clementine Kruczynski in Michel Gondry's Charlie Kaufman-scripted Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and as Sarah Pierce, the Boston mother whose life begins to unravel after she embarks upon an adulterous affair, in Todd Field's take on the Tom Perrotta novel, Little Children (2006). But Winslet won the Academy Award for Best Actress for playing Hanna Schmitz, the 1950s tram conductress who initiates a physical relationship with 15 year-old Berliner Michael (David Kross) in Stephen Daldry's adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's novel, The Reader (2008).
The second of Winslet's disappointments coincided with Helen Mirren's win from her first nomination for playing Elizabeth II coping with the aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in The Queen (2005), which was written by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Frears. Mirren would be nominated again for her work as another historical figure, Sophia Tolstaya, who strives to retain control over the literary estate of her Russian writer husband, Leo Tolstoy (Best Supporting nominee Christopher Plummer) in Michael Hoffman's reworking of Jay Parini's novel, The Last Station (2009).
Elsewhere in the decade, Julie Christie picked up her fourth nomination for another sensitive reading of the effects of Alzheimer's as Fiona Anderson in Sarah Polley's Away From Her (2007), which made her the first Brit nominated in this category to have been directed by a woman. But, with the exception of Naomi Watts for her work as recovering addict Cristina Williams-Peck in Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams (2003), the other British nominees in the 2000s were all first- (and to date) -only-timers.
Samantha Morton was typically grounded and empathetic as Sarah Sullivan, the Irish émigré who believes that she has been granted three wishes by her dead brother in Jim Sheridan's New York fairytale, In America (2002), while Imelda Staunton was grittier still as the backstreet abortionist in 1950s London in Mike Leigh's Venice Golden Lion winner, Vera Drake (2004). Keira Knightley stepped with poise into the familiar shoes of Elizabeth Bennet in Joe Wright's adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (2005), which also featured Carey Mulligan as Kitty Bennet and she would be nominated for her confident display as Jenny Mellor in An Education (2009), Lone Scherfig's reworking of an autobiographical essay by journalist Lynn Barber.
The new decade began with repeat nominations for Naomi Watts, who modelled Maria Bennett on Spanish tsunami doctor María Belón in JA Bayona's The Impossible (2012), and Judi Dench, whose Philomena Lee joins forces with journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) to trace the son who had been given up for adoption half a century earlier by some Irish laundry nuns in Stephen Frears's Philomena (2013). For the rest, the nominations were first-time honours for Felicity Jones as Stephen Hawking's wife, Jane, in James Marsh's The Theory of Everything; Rosamund Pike as missing wife Amy Elliott Dunne in David Fincher's take on Gillian Flynn's bestseller, Gone Girl (both 2014); 69 year-old Charlotte Rampling as betrayed wife Kate Mercer in Andrew Haigh's portrait of a marriage, 45 Years (2015); and Sally Hawkins as Elisa Esposito, a cleaner who makes an unusual discovery in a 1960s Baltimore laboratory in Guillermo Del Toro's Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water (2017).
The sole winner among this group was Olivia Colman, who followed up a Volpi Cup win at the Venice Film Festival by taking the Oscar for Best Actress as Queen Anne in Yorgos Lanthimos's The Favourite (2018), which also earned Best Supporting nods for co-stars Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone, as Lady Sarah Churchill and her impoverished cousin, Abigail Hill. It remains to be seen whether Cynthia Erivo can follow suit for her work as abolitionist Harriet Tubman in Kasi Lemmons's Harriet (2019), but she has already made history as the first black British actress to be nominated in this category.
Best Supporting Actress - 1930s - 1950s
Ridiculously, British stars have only converted nine of their 68 nominations in the Best Supporting category, since its inauguration in 1936. Our first contender, May Whitty, was nominated the following year for her work as wealthy widow Mrs Branson in Richard Thorpe's Night Must Fall (1937). But the UK can boast having the oldest living Best Supporting nominee (and overall oldest acting Oscar winner) in 103 year-old Olivia De Havilland, whose Melanie Hamilton in Gone With the Wind was beaten to the award by Hattie McDaniel's Mammy, which made her the first African-American to win an Academy Award.
Many would agree that Adelaide-born Judith Anderson was robbed by Jane Darwell's Ma Joad in John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath for her sublimely sinister turn as Manderley housekeeper, Mrs Danvers, in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (both 1940).
May Whitty became the first Brit to be nominated in the category twice for her performance as Kentish chatelaine Lady Beldon in the aforementioned Mrs Miniver, but both Gladys Cooper and the marvellous Angela Lansbury also doubled up during the 1940s. The imperious Cooper followed playing Mrs Vale (Bette Davis's mother) in Irving Rapper's Now, Voyager (1942) by giving Oscar-winner Jennifer Jones's Bernadette Soubirous a hard time as Sister Marie Thérèse Vauzou in Henry King's The Song of Bernardette (1943). By contrast, Lansbury was nominated for being putty in schemer Charles Boyer's hands as maid Nancy Oliver in George Cukor's creepy adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's Gaslight (1944) and as Sybil Vane, the wronged singer driven to despair by Hurd Hatfield in Albert Lewin's noirish adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945).
Nineteen year-old Jean Simmons had the distinction of being the first British actress to be nominated in this category for a home-produced picture when she was cited for her heartbreaking portrayal of Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's Best Picture-winning Hamlet (1948). But almost a decade would pass before Elsa Lanchester secured her second nomination for cajoling husband Charles Laughton's tetchy lawyer as nurse Miss Plimsoll in Billy Wilder's playful take on Agatha Christie's Witness For the Prosecution (1957).
The only other plaudits in the 1950s went to Wendy Hiller, who joined David Niven in victory as hotel manager Pat Cooper in Delbert Mann's re-staging of Terence Rattigan's Separate Tables (1958), and to Hermione Baddeley, who contributed the shortest ever Oscar-nominated performance (all two minutes and 32 seconds of it), as Elspeth, the best friend of Alice Aisgill (the Oscar-winning Simone Signoret), to Jack Clayton's reworking of John Braine's kitchen sink novel, Room At the Top (1959).
Best Supporting Actress - 1960s - 1980s
British actresses only won one Supporting Oscar in the 1960s. Glaswegian Mary Ure was nominated for her confident display as liberated factory worker Clara Dawes in Jack Cardiff's adaptation of DH Lawrence's Sons and Lovers (1960), while she was joined in receiving her sole nomination by Vivien Merchant, as Lily Clamacraft, fellow nominee Michael Caine's reluctant housewife conquest in Lewis Gilbert's modish interpretation of Bill Naughton's Alfie (1966), and by Susannah York as dance marathon contestant Alice LeBlanc in Sydney Pollack's gruelling take on Horace McCoy's Depression novel, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969).
Elsewhere in the Swinging Sixties, some familiar faces added some lustre to their reputations, as Angela Lansbury revealed a darker side as ghoulish mother Eleanor Iselin in John Frankenheimer's gripping adaptation of the Richard Condon thriller, The Manchurian Candidate (1962). By contrast, Wendy Hiller made a saintly Alice Moore alongside Oscar winner Paul Scofield in Fred Zinnemann's Tudor saga, A Man For All Seasons (1966). Gladys Cooper was nominated for the third and final time as the splendidly snooty Mrs Higgins in George Cukor's My Fair Lady (1964), while Edith Evans also took her own haul to three as the dotty Miss Western in Tony Richardson's madcap take on Henry Fielding's 18th-century masterpiece, Tom Jones (1963), and as Mrs St Maugham, the elderly woman seeking a governess for her granddaughter in Ronald Neame's simmering version of Edith Bagnold's novel, The Chalk Garden (1964).
Having demonstrated her talent for eating lustily as Mrs Waters in Tom Jones, Joyce Redman scooped a second nomination as Emilia, the wife of Iago (fellow nominee Frank Finlay) in Stuart Burge's Othello (1965), which also brought the first nomination for Maggie Smith as the wronged Desdemona. At the end of the next decade, Smith would become the first and only British actress to win in both acting categories when she followed her triumph in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by hilariously portraying nervous Oscar nominee Diana Barrie in Herbert Ross's otherwise patchy rendition of Neil Simon's California Suite (1978).
Smith's victory came a year after Vanessa Redgrave had won (and harangued the ceremony audience with a political speech) for her brief title turn in Fred Zinnemann's Julia (1977). But the 1970s and 80s were a barren spell for Supporting Brits. Margaret Leighton was overlooked for her haughty display as Mrs Maudsley in Joseph Losey's adaptation of LP Hartley's The Go-Between (1971), as were Eva Le Gallienne as Ellen Burstyn's grandmother, Pearl, in Daniel Petrie's potent second chance drama, Resurrection (1980), and Maggie Smith for her wonderfully comic performance as the fussily fidgety Charlotte Bartlett in Merchant Ivory's impeccable adaptation of EM Forster's A Room With a View (1985). The one bright spark was provided by Peggy Ashcroft, who became the category's oldest winner (at 77 years and 93 days) for her performance as Mrs Moore (after Celia Johnson had rejected the part) in David Lean's swan song interpretation of another Forster novel, A Passage to India (1984).
Best Supporting Actress - 1990s - 2020s
While there were 15 British nominations in the 1990s, only Judi Dench managed to get her hands on an Oscar, for her eightish-minute cameo as Elizabeth I in John Madden's Shakespeare in Love (1997). The other standout moment saw Marianne Jean-Baptiste become the first black British actress to be nominated in any category for her performance as Hortense Cumberbatch in Mike Leigh's previously mentioned Secrets & Lies. Julianne Moore also registered for the first time as porn star Amber Waves in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997), although she was still only using US citizenship at the time.
Otherwise, the nomination roster contained the usual mixture of stalwarts and newcomers. At 82 years and 257 days, Jessica Tandy became the oldest ever nominee in this category when she was recognised for her performance as Ninny Threadgoode in Jon Avnet's adaptation of Fannie Flagg's bestseller, Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). The following year saw three Brits nominated, with Vanessa Redgrave making the most of a brief appearance as Ruth Wilcox in Merchant-Ivory's Howards End, while Joan Plowright proved peevishly sniffy as the holidaying Mrs Fisher in Mike Newell's chic version of Elizabeth von Arnim's Enchanted April (1991). Co-star and fellow Golden Globe winner Miranda Richardson was cited for her work as Ingrid Thompson-Fleming, the cuckqueaned wife of politician Jeremy Irons in Louis Malle's racily intense adaptation of Josephine Hart's novel, Damage (1992).
Having already drawn a Best Actress nod for The Remains of the Day, Emma Thompson became only the eighth performer to be nominated twice in a single year when her supporting turn as lawyer Gareth Peirce in Jim Sheridan's Guildford Four drama, In the Name of the Father (1993) was also recognised. The following year put Rosemary Harris and Helen Mirren into the spotlight when they were respectively commended for playing Rose Haigh-Wood in Tom & Viv and Queen Charlotte in Nicholas Hytner's re-staging of Alan Bennett's play, The Madness of King George (both 1994). After Kate Winslet had lit up Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility as Marianne Dashwood and Minnie Driver had caught the eye as Harvard graduate Skylar in Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting (1997), Brenda Blethyn and Lynn Redgrave revelled in the roles of man-eating Scarborough mother Mari Hoff in Mark Herman's Little Voice and Hanna, the devoted, but homophobic housemaid of Hollywood director James Whale (Ian McKellen) in Bill Condon's Gods and Monsters (both 1998).
After Samantha Morton had brought down the curtain on the 20th century with her exquisite display as the guilelessly wordless Hattie in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown (1999), British supporting actresses entered something of a golden age. It took a while for the post-millennial ball to start rolling, as Judi Dench's Armande Voizin in Lasse Hallström's adaptation of Joanne Harris's bestseller, Chocolat, and Julie Walters's life-affirming Georgia Wilkinson in Stephen Daldry's Billy Elliot were deemed inferior to Marcia Gay Harden's turn as abstract expressionist painter Lee Krasner in Ed Harris's Pollock (all 2000). The following year, three more Brits grinned gamely into the telecast camera, as Kate Winslet's young incarnation of Iris Murdoch in Iris and Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith's wondrously contrasting turns as housekeeper Jane Wilson and Constance, Countess of Trentham in Robert Altman's Gosford Park were deemed inferior to Jennifer Connelly's Alicia Nash in Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind (all 2001), which landed Russell Crowe the Best Actor prize.
But, while Julianne Moore's Laura McGrath-Brown in Stephen Daldry's The Hours (2002) and Sophie Okonedo's Tatiana Rusesabagina in Terry George's Hotel Rwanda (2004) failed to muster sufficient votes, three compatriots did get to beam backstage with their statuettes. Leading the way was Swansea's own Catherine Zeta-Jones, who tore into the role of Velma Kelly in Rob Marshall's screen version of the hit Broadway musical, Chicago (2002). And she was followed by Rachel Weisz for her committed display as Amnesty International activist Tessa Quayle in Fernando Meirelles's adaptation of John Le Carré's The Constant Gardener (2005) and Tilda Swinton for her rivetingly raw performance as ruthless, but emotionally fragile New York lawyer Karen Crowder in Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton (2007).
This remains the UK's last triumph in this category, however, and Florence Pugh is our last hope of avoiding a 2010s shut out with her sparky turn as the capricious Amy March in Greta Gerwig's adaptation of Louisa M. Alcott's Little Women (2019). Those who came and failed to conquer can be divided into those who played historical figures and those who went down the fictional route.
While Colin Firth won Best Actor for Tom Hooper's The King's Speech (2010), Helena Bonham Carter had to remain gracious after her Queen Elizabeth was overlooked. Keira Knightley and Kate Winslet had to do likewise, as cryptanalyst Joan Clarke in Moren Tyldum's Alan Turing biopic, The Imitation Game (2014), and as Apple marketing executive Joanna Hoffman in Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs (2015). As we have already seen, Rachel Weisz failed to make it a double British success after Olivia Colman had won Best Actress for The Favourite.
Playing decorator Hubert Page alongside the excellent Glenn Close, Janet McTeer similarly deserved better for her cross-dressing efforts to find work and escape domestic abuse in late 19th-century Dublin in Rodrigo Garcia's admirable adaptation of George Moore's novel, Albert Nobbs (2011). Sally Hawkins also did well to hold her own as Ginger alongside Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA winner Cate Blanchett in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine (2016), while Naomie Harris can count herself unlucky to have come up against Viola Davis in Denzel Washington's Fences after being so impressive as crack-addicted mother Paula Harris in Barry Jenkins's Best Picture winner, Moonlight (both 2016).
The same goes for Lesley Manville, whose Cyril Woodcock alongside Best Actor nominee Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson's fashion saga, Phantom Thread, had to contend with Allison Janney's crowd-pleasing turn as monstrous skating mom LaVona Golden in Craig Gillespie's I, Tonya (both 2017). One thing is for sure, though, British actresses will continue to compete with the best in Hollywood and beyond and their work will always be available to savour via Cinema Paradiso.
To explore more of Oscar-themed content, be sure to check out The Biggest Oscar Snubs: Part 1 and The Biggest Oscar Snubs: Part 2!
