Well… it was a great, moving song, but it’s not the body of his work. Even so, sure - I’m sure he received the award partly out of sympathy. Nothing new there. In 1968, Spencer Tracy won the Oscar for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, partly because he had died shortly after the movie was completed.
<Hijack>Actually, Rod Steiger won the Oscar that year for “In
the Heat of the Night”. The only actor to win a posthumous Oscar was Peter Finch for “Network.”
I stand corrected; Tracy was only nominated. Still, that’s why he was nominated. It was a good performance, but not a great one.