(NEXSTAR) – The Academy Award is generally regarded as one of the highest honors that an actor can receive — the keyword being “generally.” In the history of the Oscars, however, there have only been three people who refused their awards: actors George C.Scott and Marlon Brando, and screenwriter Dudley Nichols.
While Katherine Hepburn famously declined every invitation to attend the Academy Awards, she reportedly displayed the Oscars trophies she had won proudly in her home. However, Marlon Brando, George C. Scott, Dudley Nichols flat out refused the award.
The Academy Award, or Oscar, is considered the highest honor in the entertainment industry, but it is not without controversies. Dudley Nichols, a screenwriter, was the first person to reject an Oscar, citing the Academy's mistreatment of writers.
From last year's infamous slapgate that led to a 10-year ban for Will Smith to Richard Gere's 20-year ban for his onstage remarks on China, these are celebrities who have courted controversy and how! Will Smith has been banned from attending the Oscars for the next 10 years.
He saw the way America historically treated Native Americans as part of the "same deep, corrosive racism that refused to extend civil rights to African Americans," and he felt far more invested in dealing with those kinds of ongoing issues than with whether he should accept an Oscar.
Marlon Brando's Best Actor Oscar win for "The Godfather" | Sacheen Littlefeather
Who was the Native American woman banned from the Oscars?
The Academy has apologised to Sacheen Littlefeather, a Native American activist and actress booed off stage at the Oscars nearly 50 years ago. She appeared on live TV in 1973 to refuse an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando, who had won the best actor prize for The Godfather.
At the Academy Awards held fifty years ago, Marlon Brando was announced as the winner of the Best Supporting Actor race for his role as Don Corleone in The Godfather. But instead of the actor taking the stage, Native American activist Sacheen Littlefeather, then age 26, stepped up to decline his Oscar on his behest.
In its 94-year history, the Academy has expelled only five members: Carmine Caridi, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski, and cinematographer Adam Kimmel.
Who is banned from the Oscars? According to Insider, six other men have previously been banned from attending the Oscars or expelled from the organization: Richard Gere, Carmine Caridi, Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski, Adam Kimmel and Harvey Weinstein.
A study published by The Hollywood Reporter (via Vocativ) finds that from the 1,396 acceptance speeches that are archived by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, director Steven Spielberg is thanked 42 times. That compares to just 19 mentions of God.
Who is the youngest ever Oscars winner? There are, of course, multiple different types of award on offer at the Oscars, but the youngest person to win any of them at all is Tatum O'Neal. She won Best Supporting Actress at the 1974 Oscars at the age of 10.
Walt Disney holds the record for the most Oscars won by an individual with a total of 22 competitive awards and four honorary awards. Disney was nominated 59 times throughout his career, receiving one award posthumously.
What happens if you reject an Academy Award? Well, it turns out…not very much. Numerous actors, writers and directors have rejected their awards over the year – and they're still listed as winners in all official records. Stars are free to send back the award statuettes, however.
Both Tom Cruise and filmmaker James Cameron opted out of the 2023 Oscars despite their respective films being nominated for multiple awards. TWO OF THE MOST nominated people at the 2023 Oscars seemingly gave this year's ceremony the flick.
Despite his stellar performances and undying fame, Keanu Reeves has never secured an Oscar. More surprisingly, he has never even received a nomination for the prestigious award.
How many actors have been stripped of their Oscars?
In fact, though there are those who have rejected their Oscars (Marlon Brando, Dudley Nichols), only one award has ever been revoked in Academy history — the 1969 prize for Best Documentary, which was given to Young Americans before it was determined that the film was released in 1967 and therefore ineligible.
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences board of governors has banned Will Smith from all its events, including the Oscars, for 10 years after the best actor winner slapped the presenter Chris Rock on stage at the Academy Awards ceremony.
Brando sent the then 26-year-old aspiring actress to protest the treatment of American Indians by the film industry but she was interrupted by boos, heckling and insults from the audience. “It was with prayer that I went up there,” Littlefeather, now 75, recalled during Saturday's event.
To date, just three people have rejected an Oscar out of well over 2,000 winners (though one of them eventually accepted it a few years later). The first person to reject an Oscar was screenwriter Dudley Nichols, who won for Best Screenplay for the 1935 film, 'The Informer'.
Why did Katharine Hepburn never attend the Oscars?
"As for me, prizes are nothing,” she once said. “My prize is my work.” Hepburn made exactly one appearance at the Academy Awards in 1974 to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to producer and friend Lawrence Weingarten. “I'm living proof that a person can wait 41 years to be unselfish,” she quipped.
Did the Academy apologize to Sacheen Littlefeather?
Nearly five decades after her speech, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said that it is issuing a formal apology to Littlefeather for the “unwarranted and unjustified” abuse, “emotional burden” and “irreparable” cost to her career.
