The 1932 Academy Awards was an edition that had many firsts. The ceremony’s 4th year became the first time a Western won Best Picture, a director won several awards, and a movie received several nominations for acting. However, there is one breakthrough from 1932’s ceremony that remains, to this day, unbeaten.
The 1932 Oscars stand out from other ceremonies across the decades for having its youngest nominee for the category of Best Actor, a record that has not been broken for 93 years. Jackie Cooper already had 19 acting credits before his nomination, though these were for shorts or smaller roles in his infancy, making his nomination all the more surprising given that it was his first lead role in a full-length movie.
Jackie Cooper Became The Youngest Best Actor Nominee In 1931
Jackie Cooper’s Performance As Skippy Won Him The Title Of America’s Boy
Jackie Cooper was only 9 years old when he became the youngest nominee for the category of Best Actor in the Academy Awards. The actor was nominated for his performance as Skippy in the 1931 adaptation of the Skippy comics by Percy Crosby. The dramedy tells the story of a mischievous wealthy boy as he befriends poor Sooky from Shantytown. Throughout the movie, Skippy exhausts his efforts to save Sooky’s dog from a cruel dogcatcher. The tear-inducing movie also garnered its director, Norman Taurog, and its writers, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Sam Mintz, nominations at the Oscars.
In 1981, Jackie Cooper published his autobiography,
Please Don’t Shoot My Dog
, in which he told, among his many resentments about being a child star, his traumatic experience with director and uncle, Norman Taurog, who, to make him cry for
Skippy
, threatened and pretended to kill a dog.
Jackie Cooper’s strong and precocious performance made such an impact on audiences that it paved the way for a myriad of films famous, if only, for “presenting Jackie Cooper” — including a spin-off sequel to Skippy, but also more than 10 titles across the 30s and 40s. The actor’s iconic youth roles won him the title of “America’s Boy.” Shockingly, however, Cooper was never again a nominee at the Oscars, despite his long Hollywood career, which saw the former child actor become an awarded filmmaker for his work in M*A*S*H and The White Shadow.
No One Has Come Close To Beating Jackie Cooper’s Best Actor Oscars Record
The Second-youngest Best Actor Nominee Was 22 Years Old
Even if other major Hollywood child stars have made their way to the Oscars nominations lineup, Jackie Cooper maintains the record as the youngest Best Actor nominee. If anything, Cooper shares a breakthrough record with other child actors and actresses who, in a different category, made history themselves, and who, like Copper, also still retain their accomplishments.
Youngest Child Actors And Actresses To Win Or Be Nominated In Any Oscars Category | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Movie | Character | Category | Actor/Actress | Age | Outcome |
Skippy (1931) | Skippy | Best Actor | Jackie Cooper | 9 years old | Nominee |
Paper Moon (1973) | Addie Loggins | Best Supporting Actress | Tatum O’Neil | 10 years old | Winner |
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) | Billy Kramer | Best Supporting Actor | Justin Henry | 8 years old | Nominee |
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) | Hushpuppy | Best Actress | Quvenzhané Wallis | 9 years old | Nominee |
Notably, actress Tatum O’Neil stands out because she was the youngest Best Supporting Actress nominee and winner. The youngest winner in the Oscars Best Actor category was Adrien Brody for his 2002 performance in The Pianist as Wladyslaw Szpilman, but the actor was 29. The second-youngest Best Actor nominee is Timothée Chalamet for his 2018 role as Elio in Call Me By Your Name when he was 22. No other child actor has come even close to beating Jackie Cooper’s youngest Best Actor nominee record, and looking at the history of movie and performance nominees, the reason why becomes evident.
Why Jackie Cooper’s Youngest Best Actor Nominee Record Is So Tough To Beat
Child Actors Often Get Supporting Roles Not Lead Roles
While movies like The Bad Seed, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Goodbye Girl, The Piano, The Sixth Sense, and Little Miss Sunshine have garnered their young actors and actresses acting nominations, these have been for supporting roles alongside adult performers. Very rarely, a drama movie has a child as the lead — especially a child as young as 9 years old. Such exceptions have made history, and remain unbeaten for a reason.
As previously remarked, even other child actors and actresses who hold their own uncontested record, such as Justin Henry and Tatum O’Neil, feature in movies that don’t revolve solely around their characters. O’Neil’s Paper Moon deals with an iconic pair of a parent figure and an orphaned girl as they travel the road enacting scams on people and escaping prosecution, while Henry’s Kramer vs. Kramer sees him as a young boy at the center of his parents’ divorce, a drama led by skilled actor Dustin Hoffman and actress Meryl Streep.
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Skippy and Jackie Cooper have met no competition, as there have been very few dramedies starring a 9-year-old, or younger, male actor. Not even Cooper’s later movies saw him again as a lead without an adult co-star. The lack of movies with a child lead in the Academy Awards history shows how difficult and unusual it is to write a dramatic role for children. Even more so, it shows how incredibly strange it is to find such an acting prowess in child performers for them to be able to carry a lead role in the way that Jackie Cooper did at just 9 years old.
Oscars
The Oscars, also known as The Academy Awards, is an annual awards show celebrating workers in the film industry for their artistic and technical abilities. The Oscars are often considered the most prestigious awards show in the industry and date back to 1929. The 96th Academy Awards will be held on March 10, 2024, and be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel on ABC.