"The Color Purple" and the Best Supporting Actress Oscar History
Monday, November 20, 2023 at 5:00PM 
A shadow of uncertainty has loomed over the awards season for a long time. It was the enigma of a major contender yet unwatched until last week when the first screenings of The Color Purple movie musical finally took place. Now, it feels like the race is truly on, with the Blitz Bazawule's picture firmly established in the run for gold. And of the categories it might compete in, Best Supporting Actress is the surest bet. Indeed, some folk are already predicting Danielle Brooks for a sweeping victory thanks to Sofia, the sing-and-dance version of the same role that earned Oprah Winfrey a nomination 38 years ago. On stage, both Brooks and Felicia P. Fields have earned nods for the part, too. But will Taraji P. Henson's Shug Avery follow her into the 96th Academy Awards ballot?
These matters make one think about the history of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, its embrace of musicals, and its propensity for nominating multiple people from the same film…
First, let's contend with the relationship between this Oscar race and musicals. By quite a margin, it's the acting category that most embraces the genre. If not necessarily in terms of nomination count, then in wins. Discounting showbiz biopics and other straight dramas with diegetic songs, we're left with 17 nominations and five victories.
1938) Miliza Korjus, The Great Waltz
1952) Jean Hagen, Singin' in the Rain
1953) Marjorie Rambeau, Torch Song
1961) Rita Moreno, West Side Story
1964) Gladys Cooper, My Fair Lady
1965) Peggy Wood, The Sound of Music
1967) Carol Channing, Thoroughly Modern Millie
1968) Kay Medford, Funny Girl
1982) Lesley Ann Warren, Victor/Victoria
1983) Amy Irving, Yentl
2002) Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago
2002) Queen Latifah, Chicago
2006) Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
2009) Penélope Cruz, Nine
2012) Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
2014) Meryl Streep, Into the Woods
2021) Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Some of these aren't musical performances, though they're presented within such a movie. For example, Amy Irving never gets to show off her vocal prowess in Yentl, where only star-director Barbra Streisand sings. However, she should still count for the list.
Moving on, 29% of people nominated in this category for a musical take home the prize. Furthermore, it's no surprise that the 1960s and 2000s are the best decades for this happening, representing two times the industry went wild for the genre. Of course, they also represent the glory before the fall and the eventual comeback if you're familiar with the history of movie musicals in Hollywood.
In other words, if Brooks can guarantee her nomination for the next Academy Awards, she could easily win. To help her case, the actress will have plenty of Oscar clip opportunities with numbers like "Hell No!" and "Any Little Thing." But then, there's the matter of Henson, blessed with a more central part and plenty of great songs but less ecstatic notices. A similar fate befell Jennifer Hudson, who failed to be Tony-nominated for the same part in 2016. Still, as a previous Oscar nominee and the movie's biggest name, Taraji P. Henson will likely pop up throughout the season. Also, it's not like the Best Supporting Actress race is resistant to double-dipping.
Indeed, of the four acting categories, it has the highest number of multiple nominees from the same movie. Check it out!
1939) Olivia de Havilland & Hattie McDaniel, Gone with the Wind
1941) Patricia Collinge & Teresa Wright, The Little Foxes
1942) May Whitty & Teresa Wright, Mrs. Miniver
1943) Gladys Cooper & Anne Revere, The Song of Bernadette
1945) Eve Arden & Ann Blyth, Mildred Pierce
1947) Celeste Holm & Anne Revere, Gentleman's Agreement
1948) Barbara Bel Geddes & Ellen Corby, I Remember Mama
1949) Ethel Barrymore & Ethel Waters, Pinky
1949) Celeste Holm & Elsa Lanchester, Come to the Stable
1950) Celeste Holm & Thelma Ritter, All About Eve
1954) Jan Sterling & Claire Trevor, The High and the Mighty
1957) Hope Lange & Diane Varsi, Peyton Place
1959) Susan Kohner & Juanita Moore, Imitation of Life
1963) Diane Cilento & Edith Evans & Joyce Redman, Tom Jones
1965) Joyce Redman & Maggie Smith, Othello
1970) Helen Hayes & Maureen Stapleton, Airport
1971) Ellen Burstyn & Cloris Leachman, The Last Picture Show
1973) Madeline Kahn & Tatum O'Neal, Paper Moon
1975) Ronee Blakley & Lily Tomlin, Nashville
1979) Jane Alexander & Meryl Streep, Kramer vs Kramer
1982) Teri Garr & Jessica Lange, Tootsie
1985) Margaret Avery & Oprah Winfrey, The Color Purple
1988) Joan Cusack & Sigourney Weaver, Working Girl
1989) Anjelica Huston & Lena Olin, Enemies, A Love Story
1994) Jennifer Tilly & Dianne Wiest, Bullets Over Broadway
2000) Kate Hudson & Frances McDormand, Almost Famous
2001) Helen Mirren & Maggie Smith, Gosford Park
2002) Queen Latifah & Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago
2006) Adriana Barraza & Rinko Kikuchi, Babel
2008) Amy Adams & Viola Davis, Doubt
2009) Vera Farmiga & Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
2010) Amy Adams & Melissa Leo, The Fighter
2011) Jessica Chastain & Octavia Spencer, The Help
2018) Emma Stone & Rachel Weisz, The Favourite
2022) Jamie Lee Curtis & Stephanie Hsu, Everything Evrywhere All At Once
Overall, it happened 35 times in 34 different years and resulted in thirteen victories. So, around 37% of these cases end in a little golden man for one of the nominees. It only happened with a musical once, in 2002, when Catherine Zeta-Jones took home the trophy for that year's Best Picture winner.
Curiously, the Sofia and Shug of Steven Spielberg's 1985 The Color Purple got nominated, so Brooks and Henson getting in would represent some lovely symmetry. They would only be the second and third instances of the same character leading to multiple Best Supporting Actress nominations. The only other time it happened in 95 years was in 2021 when Ariana DeBose repeated Rita Moreno's feat and won the award for playing Anita in West Side Story. Oh, look, another musical!
How will The Color Purple shake up the race? Are Brooks and Henson shoo-ins for Best Supporting Actress, or will the category's history prove more unpredictable still?
Reader Comments (16)
Claudio, this is an exhaustive breakdown! I thought both trailers for The Color Purple were pretty terrible...it looked so obvious and heavy-handed. I know early screenings had some advance squeals, but I'm still skeptical to see the response in a non-Oprah-hosted reality as the weeks pass. I also think the Broadway source material is not so good. But we shall see, I suppose. Good for Danielle if she can break out of the traps of the role and give us something really surprising!
Great article and I hate to ask this, but will you be updating your 96th Academy Award nominations predictions on December 6th when the shortlist for Best Animated Feature comes out on that day?
Yet another outstanding article, Claudio -- thank you! But you appear to have accidentally missed one pair of Supporting Actress nominees from the same film, one of whom won ... it happened less than a year ago! ;-)
Mike Schulz -- Oops, fixed it. Thank you for the warning.
Jennifer Hudson was not nominated for a Tony for the revival, however, Elizabeth Withers was nominated for the show’s original run. Likewise, Margaret Avery wasn’t nominated for a Golden Globe, but showed up at the Oscars. Acting and actress aside, Shug is the showier role and in my opinion, will be a nomination magnet this season.
They are.
Let's give it to Patti LuPone and Parker Posey and end with this trend.
Danielle Brooks likely has the goods to contend. Especially if the film is good. She's a talented performer and I think her role really makes the whole musical work.
However, I'm always wary of positive buzz from early screenings. The trailer looks a bit blah, and musicals haven't been setting the box office on fire lately. I'll always remember the raves about Nine that came out, leading to a boatload of Globe nominations, but middling box office and terrible reviews.
Exciting to see this list. I'm surprised that so many of the winners are recent, especially considering the heyday of 50s and 60s musicals. I suppose, though, that many of those were more box office fare rather than prestige pictures the academy would go for.
I also can't help but note that the academy tends to stay away from darker musical fare, preferring things that are a bit more fun/uplifting or straight tragic in this category.
What about Meryl Streep and Jame Alexander for Kramer vc. Kramer???
@ rdf
That is also a great reminder that Jane Alexander is a four-time nominee, twice in each actress category.
I wonder if viewers who watch “American Fiction” before watching “The Color Purple” might have had their perceptions changed.
In “American Fiction” the lead character is fed up with the tropes and cliches about black people in fiction. The Southern Gothic stories of poverty, abuse, and violence seem to be tired repetitions of narratives people are “comfortable” with.
Since this is explicit in “American Fiction” people may recognize this critique in the movies they see in the same time period. AF has won multiple audience awards, and is a quick, funny, layered, thoughtful movie. People remember movies that they really like.
“The Color Purple” is 40 years old, and the Spielberg movie was 1985 (?). I have neither read the book nor seen the movie. But some of its assumptions may have been glossed over in that era, that might come under the gaze of the modern critical eye.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some resistance and unflattering opinions about “The Color Purple”. It seems like neither a “good time at the movies” nor a critical hit. So I guess we’ll see.
I wouldn't put too much stock in buzzy tweets,they are their for indsiders to make wild proclamations like the over used "Masterpiece" or "Iconic" or "It's the best musical of all time" or some such stupid hyperbole,it happens every year and when you watch the film you end up wondering what the fuss was,it's studio mechanics working overtime and i'm quite honestly bored with it.
Good Luck to the actors in it but Avery and Winfrey and esp Goldberg will be hard to beat,sometimes actors just own roles,all respect to DeBose but Anita is RIta Moreno,she made that role so indelible that any performer could only hope to come close and Debose tried hard.
After seeing The Holdovers this weekend, I think Da'Vine Joy Randolph will be tough to beat in this category. Not only is it an opportunity to reward a very likable actress giving a great performance, it's also an opportunity to give a movie that is bound to be well-liked an above-the-line trophy (in recent years, this instinct helped DeBose, Laura Dern, and Youn Yuh-Jung in the same category).
Shug and Sofia are both showy roles and the musical gives them both show-stopping numbers, I wouldn’t be surprised if both actresses ended up nominated, but Brooks seems to be the runaway favorite so far.
I don't give 5 pennies for this movie.
For me, it's going to be a total flop.
Is 2023 shaping up to be a Just Okay Year in Film?
The only 2023 films that I've truly loved are "Anatomy of a Fall" and "Past Lives". (Sometimes less is more)
-The Killer was enjoyable, but not a masterpiece
-Oppenheimer has its moments but it's too much, it comes across as a boring DomTop somehow
-Barbie is just OK
-Killers of the Flower Moon is also just OK, and also, too much
Haven't yet seen the other major contenders - Poor Things, The Holdovers, Maestro, The Color Purple, American Fiction - but they are not exactly receiving universal acclaim at this point...
I think Brooks definitely has the lead here. Whilst she might not be a huge name, people do know her from Orange is the New Black, plus she has Oprah and Spielberg behind her. Also, she has a great narrative in transferring the role from stage to screen, and she is a highly emotional speaker which means her speeches are sure to be moving. Plus, the narrative of The Color Purple being snubbed at the Oscars is a great one to rectify by putting the story around giving her the win, plus a way of giving Oprah a win vicariously. Plus, it fits in the lineage of DeBose, Hathaway, Zeta-Jones etc. It also helps if the film is a box office success. Even early responses by those who disliked the film, and I'm sure there will be more negativity to come, still single out Brooks as the star.