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The late Walt Disney leads the pack with 59 nominations and 26 awards, including the Irving G. Thalberg Award.

Meryl Streep has the most acting nominations - 13, but won the gold only twice. Katharine Hepburn garnered the most gold, with 4 Oscars® for Best Actress. Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan and Jack Nicholson tie for second with 3 Oscars® each.

Ben Hur (1959), Titanic (1997) and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) are tied for film with the most Oscars®, at 11 each.

2. What famous director never won an Oscar®?

Alfred Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director 5 times for Rebecca (1940), Lifeboat (1944), Spellbound (1945), Rear Window (1954) and Psycho (1960), but never brought home the gold. However, in 1967 he received the Irving G. Thalberg Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Robert Altman, Clarence Brown, and King Vidor are in the same fix, batting 0 for 5 at the Oscars®.

Martin Scorsese, nominated for Best Director in 2004 for The Aviator, also has never won the directing gold but has been nominated on 4 previous occasions: Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Good Fellas (1990) and Gangs of New York (2002).

Directors with 4 nominations but no wins include: Federico Fellini, Stanley Kubrick, Sidney Lumet, and Peter Weir.

3. Which movie won every category for which it was nominated?

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) received 11 awards in every category in which it was nominated (Best Picture, Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Makeup, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Costume Design, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects).

Other films sweeping their categories include: Gigi (1958) and The Last Emperor (1987), both with 9 wins, It Happened One Night (1934) with 5 and The Matrix (1999) with 4.

4. Which women have been nominated for Best Director?

Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties (1976), Jane Campion for The Piano (1993), and Sophia Coppola, for Lost in Translation in 2003. Coppola didn't win the Best Director Oscar®, but did take home Best Original Screenplay award for that movie.

5. Who were the youngest actors to receive an Oscar?

Shirley Temple received a miniature "junior" Oscar® at age 6 years 310 days, and Tatum O'Neal received one for Paper Moon (1973) at age 10 years, 148 days.

6. Which movies won the Big Five (Best Picture, Lead Actor, Lead Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay)?

It Happened One Night in 1934, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975, and Silence of the Lambs in 1991.

7. Who designed the Oscar® statuette?

MGM art director Cedric Gibbons designed Oscar® in 1929 and Los Angeles sculptor George Stanley created the figure of a knight standing on a reel of film, hands gripping a sword. Initially he was solid bronze, then plaster. Today the gold-plated britannium figure stands more than a foot high (13.5 inches) and weighs 8.5 pounds.

8. Why do they call him Oscar®?

Nobody exactly knows, but legend has it that Oscar® was named by Margaret Herrick, the Academy's longtime librarian and later executive director, who nicknamed him after a favorite uncle. Officially, he's the Academy Award® of Merit.

The name first appeared in print when Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky used it in his column about Katharine Hepburn's first Best Actress win at the sixth Awards Presentation in 1934. The Academy itself didn't use the nickname officially until 1939.

9. How many Oscars® are given out each year?

The number varies with the possibility of a tie. Fifty awards are cast each year by R. S. Owens and Company in Chicago. Any unused awards are placed in the Academy's vault until the next year.

- Jan Snead & RWright

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