Actors with the most Oscars

The most successful figure to date in the history of the Academy Awards is Katharine Hepburn, who won four Oscars throughout her acting career. The Academy Awards began in 1929 as a way of celebrating excellence within cinema, and winning an Oscar has long been considered prestigious among stars in the movie industry.

Who was Katharine Hepburn?

Katharine Hepburn, who died at the age of 96 in 2003, was a celebrated American actress and Hollywood icon. Hepburn won an Oscar for ‘Best Actress’ for her performance in her first film ‘Morning Glory’, released in 1933. The additional three awards came much later in Hepburn’s 66-year movie career. The actress won Oscars for ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’ and ‘The Lion in Winter’ in the 1960s, and finally for ‘On Golden Pond’ at the 54th Academy Awards in 1982.

In addition to her wins, Hepburn received multiple nominations for her work, including for ‘The African Queen’ where she starred alongside Humphrey Bogart. The actress worked with several well-known Hollywood stars over the years, including Burt Lancaster, Elizabeth Taylor and Cary Grant.

Are the Academy Awards still important today?

Viewership of the Oscars has been steadily declining since 2014. However, media outlets around the world continued to provide extensive and enthusiastic coverage of the event and 2019 nominees Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper made waves on social media. Regardless of viewership figures, for winners, nominees and fans the Oscars remain a key part of the film industry and function as a metric of success.

As years pass, it is inevitable that those stars with the most Oscar wins ever will be overtaken by fresh talent. But actresses like Katharine Hepburn will forever be remembered as one of the hallmarks of classic Hollywood cinema, and will continue to be discussed, analyzed and applauded in years to come as fans look back to a bygone era of film. Impressive audience figures or not, that’s something worth celebrating.