79TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS ® SIDEBARS

In the acting categories, ten individuals are first-time nominees. The other ten share a total of 49 nominations. Three (Meryl Streep, Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett) are previous Oscar® winners.

Leading Actress nominee Judi Dench is the only performer who was also nominated last year (for Mrs. Henderson Presents).

Meryl Streep’s acting nomination this year gives her 14 nominations, breaking the record she set in 2002. Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson are tied at 12 nominations each.

At 31, Kate Winslet is the youngest performer to receive 5 acting nominations. The previous record holder was Olivia de Havilland, who was 33 when she received her fifth nomination in 1949, for The Heiress.

Should he win an Oscar this year in the Leading Actor category, Peter O’Toole would join Henry Fonda and Paul Newman as actors who won their first competitive Oscars® after having received Honorary Awards from the Academy.

The 38-year interval between nominations for Alan Arkin is not a record for performers. Arkin’s interval ties Jack Palance’s between Shane (1953) and City Slickers (1991), and represents less of a wait than those experienced by Helen Hayes (39 years between The Sin of Madelon Claudet [1931/32] and Airport [1970]) and Henry Fonda (41 years between acting nominations for The Grapes of Wrath [1940] and On Golden Pond [1981]).

Penélope Cruz and Rinko Kikuchi are both nominated for foreign-language performances. Four performers have won Academy Awards for roles using spoken languages other than English. They are Sophia Loren (1961, Actress in Two Women), Robert De Niro (1974, Supporting Actor in The Godfather Part II), Roberto Benigni (1998, Actor in Life Is Beautiful) and Benicio Del Toro (2000, Supporting Actor in Traffic). In addition, Marlee Matlin received the 1986 Leading Actress award for a performance almost entirely in American Sign Language.

The other nominees have been Marcello Mastroianni (1962, Actor in Divorce - Italian Style; 1977, Actor in A Special Day and 1987, Actor in Dark Eyes), Sophia Loren (1964, Actress in Marriage Italian Style), Anouk Aimee (1966, Actress in A Man and a Woman), Ida Kaminska (1966, Actress in The Shop on Main Street), Liv Ullmann (1972, Actress in The Emigrants and 1976, Actress in Face to Face), Valentina Cortese (1974, Supporting Actress in Day for Night), Isabelle Adjani (1975, Actress in The Story of Adele H. and 1989, Actress in Camille Claudel), Marie-Christine Barrault (1976, Actress in Cousin, Cousine), Giancarlo Giannini (1976, Actor in Seven Beauties), Ingrid Bergman (1978, Actress in Autumn Sonata), Max Von Sydow (1988, Actor in Pelle the Conqueror), Gerard Depardieu (1990, Actor in Cyrano de Bergerac), Graham Greene (1990, Supporting Actor in Dances With Wolves), Catherine Deneuve (1992, Actress in Indochine), Massimo Troisi (1995, Actor in Il Postino) and Fernanda Montenegro (1998, Actress in Central Station).

Should Letters from Iwo Jima win Best Picture, it would be the first foreign-language film to win in the category. The seven previous foreign-language Best Picture nominees were Grand Illusion (1938), Z (1969), The Emigrants (1972), Cries and Whispers (1973), The Postman (Il Postino) (1995), Life Is Beautiful (1998) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000).

“I Need to Wake Up” from An Inconvenient Truth is the first song from a documentary film to be nominated since “More” from Mondo Cane in 1963.

Best Picture Release Dates:
Little Miss Sunshine - July 26, 2006
The Departed - October 6, 2006
The Queen - October 6, 2006
Babel - October 27, 2006
Letters from Iwo Jima - December 20, 2006