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Women’s History Month - ’23 Collection

With 111 Oscar, 247 Emmy, and 95 Tony nominations, Academy alumni have garnered a considerable number of awards throughout our 150 year history. This is in no small part due to the women of our alumni community, whose work on stage and screen has drawn attention from critics from the earliest days of award ceremonies through to the present. In celebration of Women’s History Month, The Academy spotlights legacy actresses and the stars of today’s silver screen.

Below, find a list containing five nominees and winners from each category.

OSCARS

Jessica Chastain

Chastain famously received nominations back-to-back for The Help and Zero Dark Thirty, in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Nearly a decade later, Chastain would win Best Actress in a Leading Role for her empathetic portrayal of the titular role in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. The production saw Andrew Garfield play Jim Bakker opposite Chastain. 

Lauren Bacall 

In 1996, Bacall was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Barbra Streisand’s The Mirror has Two Faces. Having been nearly 52 years after her screen debut, the nomination was a well-deserved honor for the actress. Having lost that year to Juliet Binoche (The English Patient), it wasn’t until 2009 that Bacall received her due as the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at that year’s Oscars ceremony.

Anne Bancroft

With countless nominations during her acting career, Bancroft received an Academy Award for Best Actress in The Miracle Worker. Having won two Tony Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards alongside her Oscar, Bancroft is one of only 24 thespians to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting.

Jennifer Jones

Oklahoma native Jennifer Jones had worked in only two films prior to landing the role of Bernadette Soubious in The Song of Bernadette. The lead role landed Jones the Oscar for Best Actress in 1944; she would be nominated another four times during her career.

Thelma Ritter

During the period 1951 to 1963, Ritter was nominated a remarkable six times for an Academy Award. This feat did not go unrecognized, and countless publications and industry professionals commented on this anomaly. Despite her recognition in the form of nominations, Ritter was never awarded an Oscar during her career.

PRIMETIME & DAYTIME EMMYS

Gail Fisher

Fisher had a career of firsts. Being the first Black actor to win the Emmy Award for Best Actress in a Television Series, her legacy is still felt today. Her reception of an Emmy was not her only win; she also received two Golden Globes and an NAACP Image Award. 

Elizabeth Montgomery

Most known for her work on Bewitched, which aired for eight seasons, Elizabeth Montgomery became a household name during her career. Her beloved role in Bewitched saw her receive five Emmy nominations.

Agnes Moorehead

Co-star of Elizabeth Montgomery on Bewitched, Agnes Moorehead received seven Emmy nominations and one win during her career. Her win for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Drama came in 1967 for her performance of Miss Emma Valentine in The Night of the Vicious Valentine. 

Sarah Paulson

Paulson’s work in the American Horror Story franchise has seen countless Emmy nominations, but it wasn’t until The People v. O.J. Simpson that she would take home an Emmy for Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. 

Julia Garner

It’s been enthralling to see Garner win three awards in the Supporting Actress — Drama Series category at the Primetime Emmy Awards. All for her work on Ozark, the awards came in 2019, 2020, and 2022, respectively. Garner was also nominated for Inventing Anna in the category of Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.

TONYS

Rae Allen

A veteran of the stage, actress Rae Allen received three Tony nominations and one win. The win came in 1971 for Featured Actress in And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little (an Academy favorite that sees frequent Company productions). 

Colleen Dewhurst

Colleen Dewhurst was a theatre purist through and through, having worked with such consistency on the works of Eugene O’Neill that any actor would aspire to. It’s no shock that Dewhurst won two Tony Awards—once for Featured Actress and once for Leading Actress. Dewhurst was also a frequent collaborator with Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival in its early days.

Christine Ebersole

Christine Ebersole has played on stages in New York since the 1970s. Her off-Broadway credits include Three Sisters and Talking Heads, with Broadway credits extending her work even further: On the Twentieth Century, the 1979 revival of Oklahoma, the Camelot revival the following year, the 2000 revival of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, and Tony-nominated performances in Dinner at Eight, War Paint, Grey Gardens, and 42nd Street, the latter of which garnered Ebersole her two Tony Award wins.

Mary Lea Johnson

Alumna Mary Lea Johnson’s Tony-nominated work has come not from her work on stage, but from serving in the vital role of producer, ensuring that Broadway shows successfully get underway. With five Tony nominations—On the Twentieth Century, Crimes of the Heart, Grind, and Grand Hotel, The Musical—and a win for the much beloved (and since revived) original Broadway production of Sweeney Todd, Mary Lea Johnson contributed vitally to the American theatre.