Well, leaving aside that he didn’t win the Oscar.
Heck, the first Best Actor Oscar went to Emil Jannings, in part for his performance as Grand Duke Sergius Alexander in The Last Command.
Of course, that depends on whether or not one counts a Grand Duke as royalty rather than nobility. Plus Sergius Alexander was in exile and poverty, ten years after the Russian revolution.
:smack: You know, I think I am just gonna go back to bed. 
Crimey crumbcake, I remember McConaughey winning the Oscar; I’d forgotten that was the 12YaS year.
Aaaaand I misspoke here. The actor (Michael Keaton, Birdman), lost to the scientist (Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything).
Well, it does happen sometimes, Best Actor being in the Best Picture: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech, Jean Dujardin, (the other actor) The Artist. And to further cloud things, Ben Affleck did not get an acting nomination for Argo, but he was one of the producers. So he has an Oscar, just not for acting.
Anyway, I’d forgotten the lousy timing for Keaton, with the consensus being that he’d earned an Oscar, but it wasn’t going to happen, what with Redmayne being unbeatable due to playing a) a real person who b) was disabled. So Keaton and Ejiofor’s movies won; they did not.
P.S. Bryan Ekers, since I counted a duchess, I’d have to count a grand duke. So there’s one more!
Rilchiam, do you remember which issue of EW the quote regarding the OP was in?
The only lost Oscar-winning movie. Less than 5 minutes of this film are known to exist.
Warner Baxter was a singing cowboy in*** In Old Arizona…***. but that’s a stretch.
Yes, February 3/10 of this year; the Oscar preview issue. In the subsection on Best Actor nominees, it’s in a sidebar. “4 total Affleck-family nominations – 15 Best Actor nominees who have also played superheroes – 8 Best Actor winners who played musicians.” I’m fairly certain they mean winning the Oscar for that specific performance.
The problem here is the bias against singing cowboys by the academy. How many have ever even been nominated? And here we are coming for their guns too.
I’m sure you’re correct. Surely there have been at least a few more Best Actor winners who played musicians in other movies.
On second thought, maybe they did mean in other performances. James Cagney played George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Are singers generally considered musicians? Maybe EW did mean in other performances.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen this movie, but IIRC, a former girlfriend of Father Chuck shows up and she’s surprised he’s become a priest. I think she says something about his having been a musician. I know that she’s a singer in the film.
Right, and he got Best Actor for it.
Dendarii Dame, I’unno. Julie Andrews got Best Actress for Mary Poppins so (allowing that the trivia tidbit was about actors, not actresses), the logic that says Crosby qualifies could also say she qualified. I don’t, though. Mary was a nanny who used her singing to get the children to behave (and to get their father to pull the stick out of his ass). But she also used magic for that purpose, and I wouldn’t say her character was a magician or a singer; she was a nanny who used music and magic in her work.
So they may have meant Crosby, but I still say that a priest who uses music to reach his congregation (and who plays golf in his spare time) is not a musician (or a golfer). He’s a priest who sings and plays piano (and plays golf).
At any rate, this is fun! Keep 'em coming, and I’ll let you know when/if I hear back from EW. (A thank-you-for-contacting us bounced back almost immediately. “For all other inquiries, we will do our best to respond in a timely manner.” Who knows when that will be.)
Not true–Ernst Lubitsch’s The Patriot (also with Emil Jannings) won a Writing Oscar and is also Lost.
I know, I’m wondering if EW possibly isn’t counting James Cagney’s role as it’s one of a dancer/singer, which IME, is not typically thought of as a “musician.”
Maybe EW meant Best Actor winners who played musicians, but not necessarily in the role that they won Best Actor for.
If you take out Cagney, that’s one less, bringing the count down to six. Anyway, Cohan, IRL and as played, was also a composer, and that’s sure as heck a musician.
Which is why I’m bringing up the possibility that EW may have meant Best Actor winners who played musicians, but not necessarily in the role that they won Best Actor for.
If I were naming Best Actor winners who played musicians, I wouldn’t include Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy. That may just be me, though.
Since that’s my mother’s all-time favorite movie, I saw it a lot of times growing up. Like, a lot of times. Which is to say, almost as if it were a religious ritual. So when I say I’m wondering what the heck else he could’ve done in that flick to qualify, realize that I’m not enjoying how there’s now a song stuck in my head.
…aaaaaand now another.
It can’t be for other films as there would be too many, starting with Forest Whitaker in “Bird,” Denzel Washington in “Mo Better Blues,” Sean Penn in “Sweet and Lowdown” and surely many more.
Okay, there goes that theory.