ACTOR
Walter Brennan
40 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
12 Facts From Walter Brennan's Career
- #001
Walter Brennan holds the record for winning the most acting Oscars in the shortest time: three in five years.
- #002
He and Katharine Hepburn are the only actors to win three Oscars for three consecutive nominations.
- #005
He was the first actor to win three Oscars and, as of 2023, remains the only actor to win three Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor.
- #006
His third Oscar win led to extras being stripped of the right to vote.
- #008
He almost never played the villain, usually appearing as the hero's slightly eccentric sidekick. The heartless Old Man Clanton in John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946) was an exception for him. Ford and Brennan did not get along, and Ford was one of the few directors Brennan never collaborated with more than once over the course of his career.
- #009
There was some controversy over the Academy Awards Brennan won, because Academy rules at the time allowed extras to vote for nominees, and Brennan, who had worked as an extra for a time before more substantial roles came along, was popular among his fellow extras, who believed they were voting for one of their own.
- #014
He won his first Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Come and Get It (1936).
- #025
Among all actors who have won at least three acting Oscars, he was the only one who went thirty years without winning an award. He won the Best Supporting Actor award in 1936, 1938 and 1940.
- #026
Among all actors who have won at least three acting Oscars, he was the only one never to appear in a Best Picture nominee, because Come and Get It (1936), Kentucky (1938) and The Westerner (1940) were not nominated for Best Picture.
- #027
Two of his three Oscar-winning performances were directed by William Wyler. This makes him one of four actors to win two Oscars under the same director. The other three are: Jack Nicholson (Terms of Endearment (1983) and As Good as It Gets (1997), both directed by James L. Brooks), Dianne Wiest for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Bullets Over Broadway (1994) (both directed by Woody Allen), and Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012) (both directed by Quentin Tarantino).
- #033
On 8 February 1960 he was awarded a star on the Walk of Fame at 6501 Hollywood Blvd.
- #034
Actor Basil Rathbone, who was twice nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, was beaten both times by Walter Brennan, in 1937 and 1939.
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