Over on Twitter Alex posed an interesting question to me and I thought I'd share it with you. Is Meryl Streep the first actor to be Oscar-nominated for playing a witch, or anyone in a fairy tale for that matter? As far as I can tell the answer is "in the way that you mean, yes" and "I believe so."
Though no witches in the fairy tale or broom-riding sense have been nominated before Streep, technically a witch star turn has won an Oscar and another spell-caster has been nominated. The first would be Ruth Gordon's diabolical coven leaderbusybody in Rosemary's Baby which we discussed in worshipful detail here. And Sir Ian McKellen was nominated for playing "Gandalf the Grey" who, being a sorcerer, is basically the male equivalent of a witch. Otherwise, no witches. The famous witches we think of when we think of the movies weren't actually nominated. No, not even the greatest of them all, Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
After the jump let's look back through cinema history and see how fairytale or witchy films like Into the Woods have fared at the Oscars shall we? (This is an incomplete history. Feel free to share things I missed. Especially great witchiness.)
1930s
1938 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was nominated for a music Oscar but they also gave Walt Disney a special Oscar (plus 7 miniature ones awwwww) for "a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field "
1939 The Wizard of Oz won 6 Oscar nominations (including Best Picture) but only took home two statues for its music.
1940s
1942 Veronica Lake stars in I Married a Witch, but the only Oscar attention is for its score.
1946 Jean Cocteau's stunning Beauty and the Beast arrives but back then there was no foreign language film category to honor it. They were just starting to ocassionally give out honorary non-competitive foreign film wins.
1950s
1950 Disney's Cinderella receives 3 nominations all in the music and sound categories
1951 Disney's Alice in Wonderland receives a nomination for Best Score
1952 Hans Christian Anderson, a biopic of the fairy tale author starring Danny Kaye, won 6 Oscar nominations all in music or visual categories
1953 Disney's Peter Pan receives zilch in the way of Oscar nominations
1958 Bell Book and Candle, a romantic comedy about a witch (Kim Novak) and her man (Jimmy Stewart) nabs two nominations for costuming and art direction. The stars aren't nominated for Golden Globes either
1959 Disney's Sleeping Beauty is Best Score nominated. They don't give a special Oscar for voicing Maleficent which is really too bad
1960s
1962 The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm starring Laurence Harvey is popular with awards voters to the tune of 4 Oscar nominations and a win for Costumes. Harvey is also Globe nominated for his performance in the Comedy/Musical category. But no Oscar nod follows.
1963 Disney's Sword & The Stone, an animated King Arthur as a boy movie, receives a nomination for score - it has a wonderful magic battle in it, though
[1964 Note: If you consider Mary Poppins a witch -- she does have super powers and surely Mr Banks would call her that -- than we have had an Oscar winning witch performance. But most people don't call her a witch for whatever reason.]
1967 Camelot the musical wins 5 Oscar nominations in the sound and visual categories. Though this Lerner & Loewe musical has the sorcerer Merlyn it skips witchy Morgana
1968 Ruth Gordon won the Oscar for Supporting Actress as the leader of the coven in Rosemary's Baby. She does cast a few spells but not in the abracadabra way
1970s
1971 Angela Lansbury played a witch in Bedknobs and Broomsticks but though the film received 5 below the line nominations and won for visual effects this wasn't one of her nominated performances
1977 Dario Argento's cult classic coven movie Suspiria. No Oscar love
1978 The Wiz reconsiders the 1939 classic as an urban fairy tale with Diana Ross as Dorothy. 4 Oscar nominations in craft categories but neither its good witch (Lena Horne) or its bad witch (Mabel King) were honored. Not even at the Globes!
1980s
1981 Helen Mirren is memorable as the witch Morgana in John Boorman's moody sexual Excalibur (1981), an R rated retelling of the King Arthur myth, but the film only received a nomination for cinematography
(1982: Over on cable TV, Shelley Duvall started her multiple award winning Fairie Tale Theater series. TV has often been kinder to fairy tale productions)
1985 Dream Child, a very upsetting look at Lewis Carroll and his Alice in Wonderland muse, wins BAFTA love and some Oscar buzz for the late Mrs. Vincent Price, Coral Browne but not much American love materializes despite an NBR top ten placement; Legend, which is fairytale like given the unicorns and fairies gets a Makeup nomination
1986 Labyrinth, that somewhat beloved Goblin King movie receives no Oscar love
1987 The Princess Bride, beloved by millions (including Missi Pyle right here) is nominated for Original Song only. It took awhile to build its fanbase, hence the so-so box office and lack of awards love at the time.
1987 The Witches of Eastwick becomes a huge hit but its only nominations are for score and sound - no awards love for its unbeatable actressy trio (Cher. Pfeiffer. Sarandon) or its A list devil (Nicholson) which is strange. The Globes didn't even bite which seems unthinkable in retrospect; Rumplestiltskin, a musical starring Amy Irving opens. It receives no awards love
1988 Willow which features a crazy battle between two witches is nominated for visual effects and sound editing
1989 Unlike many readers I'm not one of those people who is comfortable with championing voice artists for acting Oscars. But if I were to ever champion one in would have been Pat Carroll as Ursula the Sea Witch in The Little Mermaid. The film was nominated for 3 music Oscars and won two of them.
1990s
1990 Anjelica Huston stars in The Witches which is paired with her performance in The Grifters for very prestigious Best Actress prizes from the LAFCA and the NSFC. It's quite a thing to deliver your two all time best performances in a single year! Oscar can't combine performances and they opt for her con-artist turn in the latter. The film didn't receive much love at the time though BAFTA nominated it for makeup
1991 Disney's Beauty and the Beast becomes the first Animated feature to ever be nominated for Best Picture. It receives 5 other nominations, all in the music & sound categories and wins two; Meanwhile Steven Spielberg's nadir Hook wins 5 Oscar nominations in the craft categories. To date the only Peter Pan adaptation to receive Oscar love.
1993 Hocus Pocus is released which will become a fan favorite. It received no major awards love, not even at the Golden Globes
1996 The Craft, a guilty pleasure about teenage witches calls the four corners and starts to collect fans. No awards love outside of things like MTV's "Best Fight"; A high profile prestige adapation of The Crucible, which isn't technically about witches even though the pious townsfolk think it is, received only two Oscar nominations for screenplay and supporting actress Goody Procter Joan Allen... definitely not a witch but she's casting all kinds of acting magic, trust.
1997 Snow White: A Tale of Terror, which I believe was originally intended for the screen, gets shoved to TV and Sigourney Weaver nabs a Best Actress Emmy nomination for her wicked witch, the Evil Queen
1998 Ever After, a live action Cinderella film starring Drew Barrymore and Practical Magic about sister witches (Kidman & Bullock) are both fan favorites but neither gets awards love
2000s
2001 The Harry Potter series begins. Emma Watson eventually becomes a big star for her know-it-all witch Hermione but no acting awards were ever going to greet this series though technical Oscar nods do; The Lord of the Rings trilogy also begins bringing Meryl's only (?) male counterpart in Oscar-nominated spell-casting in the form of Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf; Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece with plentiful magical creatures and one very memorable witch wins Best Animated Feature
2003 The best and best-looking film version of Peter Pan arrives for Christmas but receives no major awards love of any kind - not even in the craft categories
2004 a middlebrow dull biopic of Peter Pan's author JM Barrie called Finding Neverland gets 7 Oscar nominations and 1 win in a completely great year for cinema, proving the theory once again that great cinematic years often result in the worst Best Picture lineups. (see also 1999).
2005 Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm an adventure with the fairy tale authors arrives receives zero nominations. Not even for its elaborate costumes by Gabriella Pescucci; Meanwhile Nicole Kidman stars in a big screen adaptation of Bewitched which receives 5 Razzie nominations; The Chronicles of Narnia features a bad ass Tilda Swinton as the magical snow queen and it receives 3 nominations for makeup, visual effects, and sound. It wins for makeup.
2007 Stardust features our beloved Pfeiffer as an evil witch giving one of her best late career performance. No awards love outside of the only body that pays attention to this sort of thing which is the Saturn Awards (which awarded many films on this list)
2009 Disney's The Princess and the Frog, their last traditionally animated feature, is nominated for three Oscars, animated feature and two for Original Song
2010s
2010 Tim Burton's Eyesore in Wonderland receives three nominations: costumes, art direction, visual fx winning the first two and wrecking Nathaniel's brain
2011 Red Riding Hood tries to ride the "dark reimagined fairy tales craze" but receives no Oscar love
2012 Snow White and the Huntsman nabs two nominations for costumes and visual effects. Blancanieves, a marvelous silent Spanish Snow White adaptation gets passed over for Oscar's foreign film category though it's worth noting that Maribel Verdu won the Best Actress Oscar at the Goya's (Spain's Oscars) for her role as the wicked stepmother. And the third Snow White film of the year, Mirror Mirror wins a costume design nomination; Pixar tries its hand at magical fairytales with Brave and wins Animated Feature; Eva Green, who has played plenty of witches, delivers a crazy inspired brilliant performance a witch in a film, Dark Shadows, that doesn't remotely deserve her. No award love.
2013: Oz the Great and Powerful, running with the "Wicked" craze from Broadway retells Oz before Dorothy arrives. Michelle Williams and Mila Kunis played the witches but the film wasn't Oscar loved; Frozen, also capitalizings on the absence of a big screen "Wicked" mashes basically adapts that too, only pretends to be a very very loose retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen (good luck recognizing it!). Queen Elsa, she of the magical ice powers, helps the film win both of its Oscar nominations for Best Song and Best Animated Film
2014 Into the Woods receives 3 nominations for costumes, production design, and that doubly-historic acting nod for Streep, her 19th breaking the previous record of 18, also held by Streep; Maleficent, another witchy movie, receives 1 for costume design.
2015 Kenneth Branagh's new live-action version of Cinderella hits theaters. We shall see.
2016 Wicked the movie musical directed by Stephen Daldry is slated to arrive. HA! We'll believe it when we see it. We're not that gullible. If it ever does get made perhaps this'll be a chance for the first witchy Best Actress nomination?