The Father Anthony Hopkins became the oldest winner at 83 years old in a competitive acting category. He was not present at the awards ceremony. Presenter Joaquin Phoenix accepted the award on his behalf.
Network Nomination and award were posthumous. Finch became the first posthumous winner in an acting category. His widow Eletha Finch and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky accepted the award on his behalf.
Winner
All nominees
Giancarlo Giannini
Seven Beauties
William Holden
Network
Sylvester Stallone
Rocky Sylvester Stallone becomes the third person to be nominated for both acting and writing in the same year, following Charles Chaplin for The Great Dictator (1940) and Orson Welles for Citizen Kane (1941).
The Godfather Brando did not attend the ceremony, choosing instead to have himself represented by Sacheen Littlefeather (a.k.a. Maria Cruz), a Native American Californian actress. She clarified that Brando respectfully refused the award due to the poor treatment of American Indians in entertainment, as well as the recent Wounded Knee Incident. After several jeers were drowned out by applause, Littlefeather further stated that she hoped she had not intruded and that "our hearts and understandings will meet with love and generosity".
Patton Refused to accept the nomination and the award, because he did not feel himself to be in any competition with other actors. Frank McCarthy, the film's producer, accepted the award on Scott's behalf at the ceremony, but returned it to the Academy the next day in keeping with Scott's wishes.
Lilies of the Field Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win the Best Actor Oscar and the only one until Denzel Washington for Training Day (2001), 38 years later. By a strange coincidence, Washington won the Best Actor award on the same night when Poitier received an Honorary Oscar.
Separate Tables Niven was a co-host of this year's Academy Awards ceremony. To date, he is the only actor to win an Oscar in the same year serving as a host.
Winner
All nominees
Tony Curtis
The Defiant Ones
Spencer Tracy
The Old Man and the Sea
Sidney Poitier
The Defiant Ones Sidney Poitier became the first African-American to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
East of Eden This was the first posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history, although Jeanne Eagels was retroactively credited with a posthumous nomination for the 2nd Academy Awards in 1930, when no nominees were announced prior to the ceremony.
The Bells of St. Mary's Crosby became the first actor to be twice nominated for an Oscar for portraying the same character; he had previously portrayed Father Chuck O'Malley in Going My Way (1944).
Going My Way Fitzgerald is the only actor to have received Leading and Supporting Actor nominations for the same performance. Voting rules were altered shortly after this occurred to prevent future such instances.
It Happened One Night In 1996, Steven Spielberg anonymously purchased Clark Gable's Oscar to protect it from further commercial exploitation, gave it back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, commenting that he could think of "no better sanctuary for Gable's only Oscar than the Motion Picture Academy".