Has anyone won the Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, or Best Supporting Actress Academy Awards for their debut film performance? How about Best Director for a first-time director? Or Best Original/Adapted Screenplay for a first-time screenwriter?
I believe Marlee Matlin’s Best Actress award was for her debut performance.
Anna Paquin has only one previous credit listed on her IMDB page before “the Piano” (best supporting actress - and I think, the youngest person to win one as well). It’s a voice only credit, so “the Piano” - her oscar-winning performance - is her first ‘face’ appearance.
Paquin’s role in Castle in the Sky came well after the Piano (something like 2003, IIRC) - it’s just she was redubbing a movie that was 20-odd years old at that point.
The Piano is her first movie role, period.
Does Audrey Hepburn count? She had done some small bit parts in films, but her first starring role in Roman Holiday won her Best Actress?
Nope. I’m asking about people who have never acted on screen before.
Nope. Tatum O’Neal is still the youngest Oscar winner for Paper Moon, which was also her debut performance.
Haing S. Ngor won a Best Supporting Actor award for his debut role in The Killing Fields.
I swear I was going to start this exact thread yesterday…
Wasn’t *Funny Girl *Streisand’s first role?
Yes, but Babs only won a half-Oscar.
I keed, I keed. She tied (within three votes, a tie under AMPAS rules) with Katharine Hepburn for A Lion In Winter, which was I think the only tie…
Yup on Barbra Streisand. She tied with Katharine Hepburn in Lion in Winter (definitely *not * her first role).
Dammit, Otto!
Harold Russell in Best Years of Our Lives.
And he’s also unique for winning two Oscars for the same role.
Charlie Kaufman won Best Original Screenplay for Being John Malkovich his first produced screenplay.
Orson Welles: Best original screenplay (shared) for “Citizen Kane”
Mel Brooks: Best original screenplay for "The Producers
Robert Redford: Best director for “Ordinary People” (the first film he directed)
Jerome Robbins: Best director (shared) for “West Side Story.”
Not catagory you listed but Stanely Kubrick won for his first and only credit for special effects.
Welles had written two produced screenplays (one original) before Citizen Kane. But both were shorts.
Brooks wrote The Critic.
(I am so glad you drew attention to this. I’m going to spoil it now and scold him for having Lupus.)
Um, what?