Danielle Brooks (‘The Color Purple’) could become the 3rd performer to lose the Tony, but win the Oscar for same role

In 1964 Barbra Streisand became a star when she opened the original Broadway production of “Funny Girl” as real-life actress, singer and comedian Fanny Brice. Despite rave reviews, she ended up losing the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical to Carol Channing for “Hello, Dolly!” But in 1968 Babs made her motion picture debut in a film adaptation of “Funny Girl” directed by William Wyler, reprising her role as Fanny. She went on to win the Oscar for Best Actress (famously in a tie with Katharine Hepburn for “The Lion in Winter”). In 1970 Eileen Heckart was Tony nominated for her featured performance as Mrs. Baker in “Butterflies are Free,” but lost to her co-star Blythe Danner. But in 1972 Heckart reprised her role in a film adaptation, which won her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

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Streisand and Heckart are both currently among 11 performers to have won an Oscar for repeating a stage role on film. The other nine are José Ferrer in “Cyrano de Bergerac” (1950), Shirley Booth in “Come Back, Little Sheba” (1952), Yul Brynner in “The King and I” (1956), Anne Bancroft in “The Miracle Worker” (1962), Rex Harrison in “My Fair Lady” (1964), Paul Scofield in “A Man for All Seasons” (1966), Jack Albertson in “The Subject Was Roses” (1968), Joel Grey in “Cabaret” (1972), and Viola Davis in “Fences” (2016). But unlike Babs and Eileen, each of them won Tonys for those same characters on Broadway.

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To date Streisand and Heckart are still the only two performers to lose a Tony for a stage role, but then win an Oscar for the film adaptation. That could change this year, though. As “The Color Purple” just started screening, a number of pundits are labeling Danielle Brooks as the possible Best Supporting Actress Oscar frontrunner.

In “The Color Purple,” Brooks plays Sofia, a fiercely independent woman who refuses to submit to anyone who tries to dominate her. When she first played that role in the 2015 Broadway revival, she earned a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Yet she ended up losing to Renée Elise Goldsberry for “Hamilton.” Coincidentally, Goldsberry originated the role of Nettie in the original 2005 Broadway production of “The Color Purple.”

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As of this writing, based on the combined predictions of Gold Derby users, Brooks is in second place for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar with 9/2 odds. Behind her in fourth place with 17/2 odds is her co-star Taraji P. Henson, who plays blues singer Shug Avery. If both of them are nominated, might they cancel each other out? It has happened before with this source material. When Steven Spielberg‘s 1985 nonmusical film adaptation of Alice Walker‘s novel competed at the Oscars, Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey both received Best Supporting Actress bids for their respective performances as Shug and Sofia. Yet the winner was Anjelica Huston for “Prizzi’s Honor.”

When the stage musical adaptation first competed at the Tonys in 2006, Felicia P. Fields and Elisabeth Withers both received Best Featured Actress in a Musical bids for their performances as Sofia and Shug, respectively. Yet the winner was Beth Leavel in “The Drowsy Chaperone.” So vote-splitting is always a possibility. Then again, we did just see Jamie Lee Curtis overcome vote-splitting in this same Oscars category, overtaking her “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-star Stephanie Hsu to win this past year.

Throughout the 21st century so far, four musical performances have already won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress: Catherine Zeta-Jones for “Chicago” (2002), Jennifer Hudson for “Dreamgirls” (2006), Anne Hathaway for “Les Misérables” (2012), and Ariana DeBose for “West Side Story” (2021). If Brooks wins this year, she’d not only be the fifth, but also the first Tony loser to do better at the Oscars since Eileen Heckart back in 1972.

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