Oscar No-Shows: The A-List Winners and Nominees Who Missed the Ceremony

The Do the Right Thing maverick picked up his statuette when it was formally presented last fall. But he says he won’t be on hand for the obligatory telecast shout-out at the 2016 Oscars. For one thing, he wants Hollywood to dig itself out of its diversity problem. For another, the New York Knicks are playing that night.

(Photo by Getty Images)

The critically acclaimed filmmaker didn’t dare go near the then-Kodak Theatre to pick up his Oscar for The Pianist — he was (and still is) considered a fugitive in Los Angeles, from which he fled after pleading guilty in 1977 to having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

(Polanski directing The Pianist; photo by Everett Collection)

Though not exactly press-shy, Penn is no Oscar campaigner. He skipped the shows for his first three nominations (Dead Man Walking, Sweet and Lowdown, and I Am Sam, respectively), only relenting when it appeared he might — and did — win for Mystic River and Milk.

(Penn with his 2009 Oscar for Milk; photo by Getty Images)

By 1986, the blue-eyed legend had lost so many times (seven) that the Academy gave him an honorary award. (He accepted via an awkward on-the-set remote.) The following year, Newman was nominated for The Color of Money, but was reported to be “too superstitious” to attend the ceremony. When his Best Actor losing streak was broken, Newman sent word from his Connecticut home that he was “thrilled.”

(The Color of Money; photo by Everett Collection)

This happened: In the midst of a storied career, and on his fourth Oscar try, Caine was denied the opportunity to pick up his first statuette, for Hannah and Her Sisters, because he was stuck in the Bahamas filming Jaws: The Revenge.

(Jaws: The Revenge; photo by Everett Collection)

Rather than fly to Hollywood for her first and only Oscar win, for A Passage to India, the esteemed actress remained in her native Britain to attend the funeral of U.K. stage legend Michael Redgrave, father of actress Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave. Angela Lansbury accepted on her behalf.

(A Passage to India; photo by Everett Collection)

The classic Hollywood star was 76 and ailing from heart disease when he became the sentimental favorite to win his first acting Oscar after three career nominations. Daughter Jane Fonda, his On Golden Pond costar and a Best Supporting Actress nominee herself, accepted on his behalf. The elder Fonda died just months later.

(On Golden Pond; photo by Everett Collection)

To date, no actor, man or woman, has won more Oscars than Hepburn. And safe to say no actor has been a no-show at more ceremonies than Hepburn. She didn’t go, not once, when she was a Best Actress contender — and she received 12 nominations in all. “Why don’t I go to the Academy Awards?” Hepburn asked herself in 1979. “It has to be that I’m afraid I’m going to lose, doesn’t it?”

(Hepburn earned her first Oscar for 1933’s Morning Glory; photo: Everett Collection)

The average age of the four Oscar-winning actors at the 1982 Academy Awards was 70.8, so perhaps it’s no shock that among the veteran quartet, only the spry, 56-year-old Maureen Stapleton attended. Then again, Gielgud, who prevailed for Arthur, was hardly decrepit: The prolific actor was said to be at work at the time on another film.

(Arthur; photo: Everett Collection)

The Katharine Hepburn of writer-directors, Allen to date has never attended an Oscars at which he’s been nominated. His no-show nights are too many to list here, but are highlighted by the time he was a triple-threat contender for Best Picture winner Annie Hall. “I have no regard for that kind of ceremony,” Allen said of the Oscars in 1987. His preferred venue: Michael’s Pub in New York City, where Allen plays clarinet with his jazz combo on most Oscar nights.

(Allen playing clarinet; photo: Getty Images)

Brando went from looking dapper on the occasion of his Oscar win in 1955 for On the Waterfront, to staying home and dispatching actress Sacheen Littlefeather to reject his Godfather statuette in protest of “the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry.”

(Sacheen Littlefeather; photo: Getty Images)

In the run-up to his big night, Scott derided the Oscars ceremony as a “meat parade,” and gave notice he wouldn’t be attending. He didn’t. But the Patton star won anyway, giving presenter Goldie Hawn giggly pause, “Oh, my God — the winner is George C. Scott!” Patton producer Frank McCarthy accepted the award in Scott’s place.

(Patton; photo: Everett Collection)

Like his longtime on- and off-screen leading lady, Katharine Hepburn, Tracy was a serial no-show. By his own count, the no-frills, two-time Oscar winner attended the ceremony only once as a nominee, in 1939, when he took home the gold for Boys Town. Tracy died before the 1968 show, at which he was up for his ninth and final career nomination, for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

(Tracy with Bette Davis at 1939 Oscars; photo: Getty Images)

Taylor, who practically rose from her deathbed to accept the 1961 Best Actress Oscar for Butterfield 8, cited a fear of flying for skipping her second career win for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (She was in France at the time.) But it was widely speculated that Taylor stayed away in solidarity with husband and fellow Virginia Woolf nominee Richard Burton, who supposedly was afraid he’d lose Best Actor to A Man for All Season’s Paul Scofield. (He was right.) At least Taylor wasn’t alone: Scofield and Best Supporting Actress Sandy Dennis (Virginia Woolf) didn’t attend, either, owing to work commitments.

(Taylor at 1961 ceremony; photo: Getty Images)

Already a Tony winner by the time her Oscar moment came, Bancroft remained in New York to work on a play while her new best friend, screen legend Joan Crawford, gleefully accepted her statuette for The Miracle Worker. (Fun factoid: Bancroft was the designated acceptor for Elizabeth Taylor in 1967.)

(The Miracle Worker; photo: Everett Collection)

The screenplay winner for The Brave One wasn’t on hand because he didn’t really exist. Oh, there was a Robert Rich — he was the nephew of the drama’s producers — but he wasn’t the writer. Blacklisted scribe Dalton Trumbo was. The Academy righted history in 1975 when it presented the Oscar to Trumbo.

(Dalton Trumbo; photo by Getty Images)

The day before the ceremony, Garland went into labor with her third child. The Star Is Born hopeful remained in the hospital as the red carpet was rolled out, and ended up watching the show on TV as a crew of TV cameras watched her. But there was to be no bedside photo-op — she lost to Grace Kelly (The Country Girl).

(A Star Is Born; photo: Everett Collection)

In the Oscars’ relative youth, actors who weren’t based in Hollywood were wary of heading out to the West Coast on a 1-in-5 chance they’d come away with a statuette. In the run-up to the 1951 show, a wire service estimated nearly half of the acting nominees would be absent. On the big night, top winners Ferrer (Cyrano de Bergerac) and Judy Holliday (Best Actress, Born Yesterday) indeed stayed back in New York, though Ferrer did offer a disembodied speech, via a radio hookup, to attendees at Hollywood’s Pantages Theatre.

(Cyrano de Bergerac; photo by Getty Images)

The fierce Mildred Pierce star called in sick with the flu. If you’ve seen Mommie Dearest, you know she also called reporters into her bedroom, where she modeled a “fluffy blue nightgown and coffee colored negligee” while monitoring the ceremony, and her eventual win, by radio.

(Crawford in her bed with Oscar; photo: Getty Images)

The very first Academy Awards featured the very first high-profile no-show. Despite knowing he’d be an honoree for The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh (winners were notified months before the inaugural banquet), Jannings opted to trade Hollywood for his native Germany, where he went on to help make Nazi propaganda movies. (Uh-oh…)

(The Last Command; photo: Everett Collection)