Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie at the 96th Academy Awards on 10 March 2024. It made Eilish, 22 years old at the time, the youngest winner of two Oscar awards. Her brother, Finneas, is the second-youngest two-time winner at 26 years.
Eilish broke the record held by Luise Rainer, who won Best Actress in 1937 for The Great Ziegfeld and again in 1938 for The Good Earth by the time she was 28 years old. Eilish won her first Oscar in 2022 for the song “No Time to Die” from the 2021 James Bond film of the same name. That win made her the second-youngest Best Original Song winner at age 20, behind Czech-Icelandic singer-songwriter Markéta Irglová who won in 2008 at age 19 for “Falling Slowly” from the acclaimed Irish musical Once (2007).
The Oscar winner list of 2024 was dominated by Oppenheimer, which bagged wins in seven categories including individual honours for Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, and Robert Downey Jr. beside Best Picture. Other winners included Emma Stone and Da’Vine Joy Randolph as well as films such as The Zone of Interest and Godzilla Minus One. With Toshio Suzuki, Hayao Miyazaki won his second Oscar for The Boy and the Heron.
So, who are the youngest Oscar winners of all time? A quick look reveals that there is readily available information about the oldest and youngest Oscar winners in the acting categories as well as among directors. Thereby, it can be concluded that an overwhelming number of winners are in the three main acting categories – Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress – who were 25 years old or below at the time of winning the honour.
Adrien Brody, the youngest winner in the Best Actor category to date, was 29 years and 343 days old when he won for The Pianist at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003. That makes him the record holder for two decades through but not among the youngest in the acting categories.
Among the several names who are among the youngest Oscar winners are icons such as Audrey Hepburn, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence, Joan Fontaine and Patty Duke.
Youngest winners of Oscars in competitive acting categories
Jennifer Jones
Age: 25 years, 0 days
Award: Best Actress in a Leading Role
Movie: The Song of Bernadette (1943)
Jennifer Jones won the award on her 25th birthday on 2 March 1944. It was also the first time she had been nominated for an Oscar. On 20 January 1944, she had already made history as the first winner in the Best Actress in a Drama category at the inaugural Golden Globes. Jones would eventually become one of the greatest actors of all time with four more Academy Award nominations in leading and supporting actress categories.
Audrey Hepburn
Age: 24 years, 325 days
Award: Best Actress in a Leading Role
Movie: Roman Holiday (1953)
Roman Holiday is an all-time favourite romantic classic of many to this date. Hepburn played the role of a princess who gives the slip to her entourage to explore Rome on her own. A chance encounter with a reporter named Joe Bradley leads to fun-filled situations and a blossoming romance. The film received 10 Oscar nominations, but Gregory Peck, who played the role of Joe, was given the snub. The nod for Hepburn was the first of the five Oscar nominations she received in her career and marks her only win.
Angelina Jolie
Age: 24 years, 296 days
Award: Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Movie: Girl, Interrupted (1999)
Angelina Jolie’s only Oscar win came in this biographical psychological drama by James Mangold. She played the role of Lisa Rowe, a manipulative sociopath who is an inmate at a psychiatric hospital where she develops a friendship with a new inmate, 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder) — the protagonist on whose 1993 memoir the film is based. Jolie’s was the only nomination for the film.
Goldie Hawn
Age: 24 years, 137 days
Award: Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Movie: Cactus Flower (1969)
Cactus Flower is a comedy film starring Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman and Hawn. It was nominated in only one category — that of Hawn’s, which she won. It remains her only Oscar win to date, though she was nominated in the Best Actress category for Private Benjamin (1980).
Teresa Wright
Age: 24 years, 128 days
Award: Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Movie: Mrs. Miniver (1942)
Teresa Wright was 23 years old when she was nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category in 1942 for her debut film, The Little Foxes (1941). But she did not win the award on the occasion. The following year, at the 15th Academy Awards in 1943, she was nominated once again in the same category for the iconic film Mrs. Miniver, which she eventually won to become one of the youngest Oscar winners of all time. Interestingly, she was also in the running for Best Actress the same year for the film The Pride of the Yankees (1942).
Joan Fontaine
Age: 24 years, 127 days
Award: Best Actress in a Leading Role
Movie: Suspicion (1941)
Widely hailed as one of the greatest suspense movies by Alfred Hitchcock, Suspicion earned Fontaine her only Oscar win. Before her win, she had been nominated in the same category for Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940). Two years later, she earned her third Oscar nomination for Best Actress for the romantic film The Constant Nymph (1943). To date, Fontaine is the only actress to have won an Academy Award for a Hitchcock film. Her elder sister, Olivia Mary de Havilland, won an Oscar for Best Actress for the film To Each His Own (1946). This makes them the only siblings to have won Oscars in lead acting categories.
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Anne Baxter
Age: 23 years, 310 days
Award: Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Movie: The Razor’s Edge (1946)
Anne Baxter is best known for the film All About Eve (1950) — the joint record holder for the most nominated movie ever in Oscar history. She received an Oscar nomination in the Best Actress category but didn’t win. Nevertheless, her only win came for The Razor’s Edge, a film based on W. Somerset Maugham’s 1944 novel of the same name. Baxter was the youngest Oscar winner in the Best Supporting Actress category for 16 years till 1963.
Janet Gaynor
Age: 22 years, 222 days
Award: Best Actress in a Leading Role
Movies: 7th Heaven (1927), Sunrise (1927), Street Angel (1928)
Janet Gaynor has the unique distinction of being the first Oscar winner for Best Actress at the inaugural 1st Academy Awards in 1929. She is also the only actress to have won the same award for multiple roles, as the rule was changed three years later by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) — the governing body of Oscars. All three movies were silent films and all were made by Fox Studios. This is why her 1929 nomination is counted as one. Her second nomination, also in the Best Actress category, came in A Star Is Born (1937), a talkie. Gaynor held the record as the youngest Oscar winner in the Best Actress category for 58 years till 1987.
Jennifer Lawrence
Age: 22 years, 193 days
Award: Best Actress in a Leading Role
Movie: Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
When she was 20 years old, Jennifer Lawrence became one of the youngest nominees in Oscar history when she earned a nod in the Best Actress category for Winter’s Bone (2010). She made history once more two years later when she became the second-youngest Oscar winner in the same category when she took home the prize for Silver Linings Playbook (2012). Lawrence, widely hailed as one of the greatest actors of the current generation, earned two more Oscar nominations following her win: Best Supporting Actress for American Hustle (2013) and Best Actress for Joy (2015).
Marlee Matlin
Age: 21 years, 218 days
Award: Best Actress in a Leading Role
Movie: Children of a Lesser God (1986)
The youngest Oscar winner for Best Actress, Marlee Matlin has held the record for 36 years since she received it at the 39th Academy Awards in 1987. Matlin, who made her film debut with Children of a Lesser God, is also the first deaf winner in Oscar history.
Timothy Hutton
Age: 20 years, 227 days
Award: Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Movie: Ordinary People (1980)
Ordinary People, which is based on the 1976 novel of the same name by Judith Guest, is particularly noted for being the directorial debut of screen icon Robert Redford. The film won four of its six Oscar nominations, including Best Director for Redford and Best Picture. Hutton’s win made him the youngest Oscar winner in the Best Supporting Actor category — a record he has held for over four decades now.
Patty Duke
Age: 16 years, 115 days
Award: Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Movie: The Miracle Worker (1962)
Patty Duke won at the 35th Academy Awards for playing the role of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (1962) after essaying it on Broadway. Her win made her the youngest Oscar winner in the category for 11 years till 1974. Duke later made her name on TV, winning three Primetime Emmy Awards in her career including one for the 1979 made-for-TV film version of The Miracle Worker.
Anna Paquin
Age: 11 years, 240 days
Award: Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Movie: The Piano (1993)
Anna Paquin made her acting debut playing Flora McGrath in The Piano (1993). She gained incredible popularity as a child actress through the 1990s, before hitting international stardom with the blockbuster X-Men franchise as the mutant Rogue.
Tatum O’Neal
Age: 10 years, 148 days
Award: Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Movie: Paper Moon (1973)
Tatum O’Neal holds the record for the youngest Oscar winner in any competitive category in Academy history. Her win came for her outstanding portrayal of Addie Loggins, an orphaned girl who joins a con man, Moses “Moze” Pray, in the latter’s schemes during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The film is based on Joe David Brown’s 1971 novel Addie Pray. The role of Moze was played by O’Neal’s real-life father Ryan O’Neal.
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(Hero image: IMDb; Featured image: Courtesy of © 2012 – The Weinstein Company/IMDb)
This article first appeared on Lifestyle Asia India
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
– Has a child ever won an Oscar?
Yes, Tatum O’Neal, Anna Paquin and Patty Duke are three child actors to have ever won an Oscar.
– Why did Billie Eilish win an Oscar?
Billie Eilish won the Oscar for Best Original Song for “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie.
– Who was the 9-year-old Oscar nominee?
Quvenzhané Wallis is the youngest Best Actress nominee in Oscars history. She was nominated for Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) at the age of 9.
– Did Barbie win any Oscar?
Yes, it won one Oscar which came for Best Original Song for Billie Eilish.
