Mini-Countdown: Five Longest Waits In Oscar History

One of the most striking things about this year's Oscar nominations was how many of the acting nominees were receiving a nomination after a long period of time. Joe Pesci (29 years), Al Pacino (27 years), Anthony Hopkins (22 years), Tom Hanks (19 years), Kathy Bates (17 years), and Renée Zellweger (16 years) all chalked up another nod after the best part of two (and in some cases, three) decades. 

However, these are not close to the longest times some actors have had to wait between their recognition by the Academy. Here are the five longest waits between acting nominations in Oscars history (as of 2020):

1. HENRY FONDA: 41 YEARS

Fonda received his first Oscar nomination in the Best Actor category for playing Tom Joad in The Grapes Of Wrath (1940) [but would lose out to James Stewart for The Philadelphia Story (1940)]. It would be a colossal 41 years until the Academy saw fit to nominate him for a second time, again as Best Actor. [He received a Best Picture nomination as producer of 12 Angry Men (1957) in between the two]. His performance as Norman Thayer Jr. in On Golden Pond (1981) would win him the Oscar; however, he wasn't present at the ceremony and his daughter and co-star Jane Fonda accepted the award on his behalf. As of 2020, Fonda is the oldest winner of the Best Actor Oscar (he was 76 when he won). 


2. SYLVESTER STALLONE: 39 YEARS

Sylvester Stallone got his first acting Oscar nomination when he starred as struggling small-time boxer Rocky Balboa in Rocky (1976) (which also gained him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination as well). However, Peter Finch's electric performance in Network won through. Fast forward nearly forty years, and Stallone brought Rocky back to ask as mentor to Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) in Creed (2015), giving a fine performance which netted him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, which (frankly) he should have won [which went to Mark Rylance instead for Bridge Of Spies (2015)]. Whilst an Oscar still proves elusive, Stallone nevertheless has a rather elite claim to fame: as of 2020, he is one of only six actors (the others being Peter O'Toole, Paul Newman, Bing Crosby, Al Pacino and Cate Blanchett) who have been nominated for two Oscars for playing the same character in different films. 


3. HELEN HAYES: 39 YEARS

The First Lady of the American Theatre was also an Oscar-winning actress, winning a Best Actress Oscar for one of her first film roles, The Lullaby [also known as The Sin Of Madelon Claudet] (1931). Despite a career which included Arrowsmith (1931), A Farewell To Arms (1932) and Anastasia (1956), it would be nearly four decades before Hayes received her second acting nomination, this time in the Best Supporting Actress category for playing elderly stowaway Ada Quonsett in star-studded disaster movie Airport (1970). At the 43rd Academy Awards in 1971, Hayes won (netting the film's only win from 10 nominations), becoming the first performer to win Oscars in lead and supporting categories. 


4. JACK PALANCE: 38 YEARS

Palance got three Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations throughout his career: he was nominated for two years on the run [for noir thriller Sudden Fear (1952) and Western drama Shane (1953)] and then... nothing for 38 years. Until his performance as grizzled trail boss Curly Washburn in City Slickers (1991). Palance's nod for Best Supporting Actor would be the film's only Oscar nomination- and Palance won! His acceptance speech will go down in Oscars history as one of the most WTF moments when he proceeded to do a series of one-armed push-ups during the speech (which he claimed convinced studio insurance agents that he was well enough to work on the film). 


5. ALAN ARKIN: 38 YEARS

In many of these cases, the gap has come between an actor's first and second nomination. In the case of Alan Arkin, his 38 year wait came between his second and third nominations. Arkin got his second Best Actor nod for The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (1968) in which he played a deaf-mute. His third nomination- and his first in the Best Supporting Actor category- came for his wonderfully warm and cantankerous performance as the drug-using Grandpa Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine (2006), which he won! [Arkin received his second Best Supporting Actor nod six years later for his role in Argo (2012)]