After an unprecedented year of abject uncertainty, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has designated the 93rd Oscar Awards to take place in Hollywood on April 25, 2021. Although the event is set later in the year than normal, the buzz is already beginning to build for the top-contending films, performances, and technical standouts.
As the 93rd Academy Awards approach, the spotlight is turned toward the Best Leading Actress category. Among the youngest winners in the history of the category includes some of the most iconic names in Hollywood.
Vivien Leigh - Gone With The Wind (1939)
At 26 years and 116 days old, the legendary Vivien Leigh earned her first of two career Academy Awards in 1940. Her first honor came for the landmark Southern drama Gone With the Wind and her second came a dozen years later for A Streetcar Named Desire.
Gone With the Wind is the sweeping four-hour epic concerning the rocky romance between southern belle Scarlett O'Hara and her rebellious beau Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) following the American Civil War.
Julie Christie - Darling (1965)
Dame Julie Christie won the first Oscar she was nominated for in 1966. At age 26 years and four days, Christie won for her portrayal of Diana Scott in Darling, a sexually-liberated model climbing the ranks in London during the swinging sixties.
Directed by John Schlesinger, Darling is a rich character study about a woman who cannot tame her desires after meeting a suitable lover named Robert Gold (Dirk Bogarde). The film also won Oscars for Best Costume Design and Original Screenplay.
Hilary Swank - Boys Don't Cry (1999)
With 25 years and 240 days under her belt, Hilary Swank turned in one of the all-time greatest performances in cinematic history as Brandon Teena in Boys Don't Cry.
Based on a true story, the film follows Brandon, a young trans man. On the run for grand-theft-auto, Teena befriends several male locals in rural Nebraska. However, when the men discover Teena's secret, a harrowing series of events transpires.
Grace Kelly - The Country Girl (1954)
Grace Kelly became the Princess of Monaco after her Oscar-winning film The Country Girl screened at the Cannes Film Festival, during which she met Prince Rainier in May of 1954.
Adapted by George Seaton from the Clifford Odets play, The Country Girl follows a movie director (William Holden) who hires an alcoholic leading man (Bing Crosby) desperate for a comeback and begins to fall for the actor's wife (Kelly) in the process of making the film. Kelly was 25 years and 138 days old at the time of winning.
Jennifer Jones - The Song Of Bernadette (1943)
Jennifer Jones won the sole Oscar of her career on her 25th birthday, which took place on March 2, 1943. She earned the gold statuette for her work as Bernadette, a French peasant girl who becomes famous for her so-called vision of the Virgin Mary.
When Bernadette claims to have seen a divine image of a radiant woman in a French slum in 1858, she is castigated as insane by the French government. Unwilling to be silenced, Bernadette begins to garner international acclaim for her outlandish visions.
Audrey Hepburn - Roman Holiday (1953)
Thirty-one days before her 25th birthday, screen idol Audrey Hepburn won an Oscar for Best Leading Actress for her turn in Roman Holiday. Co-starring Gregory Peck, the film is still considered one of the finest romantic comedies ever made.
At age 24, Hepburn portrayed Princess Ann, a bored and spoiled royal on a publicity tour through Europe. When Ann meets the dashing American newsman Joe Bradley (Peck), the two spend an unforgettable time together while attempting to keep the princess's profile as low as possible.
Joan Fontaine - Suspicion (1941)
At 24 years and 127 days old, Joan Fontaine is so far the fourth-youngest Best Leading Actress winner of all time. She won her Oscar for her performance in Alfred Hitchcock's film noir mystery, Suspicion.
Fontaine plays Lina Aysgarth, a rich woman who is wooed by the duplicitous moocher, Johnnie (Cary Grant), while on a first-class train car. After they get married, Lina begins to discover Johnnie's true nature as a money-borrowing liar mixed up in a murder plot.
Janet Gaynor - 7th Heaven (1927)
Way back in 1929, Janet Gaynor earned a retroactive Best Leading Actress Oscar for a trio of films: 7th Heaven (1927), Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), and Street Angel (1928). Gaynor was 22 years and 222 days old at the time.
In 7th Heaven, Gaynor stars as Diane, a young prostitute with a heart of gold who begins to fall in love with a street sweeper who saves her life one day in Paris. The film also won Oscars for Best Director and Adapted Screenplay.
Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
At 22 years and 193 days young, Jennifer Lawrence became the second-youngest Best Lead Actress winner in Academy history. She accomplished the historical feat for her turn in Silver Linings Playbook, a movie that offers an honest account of mental illness.
Directed by David O. Russell, the movie centers on Pat (Bradley Cooper), a bipolar man reeling over his fiancee's affair. As Pat is released from the mental ward and returns to his childhood home in Philadelphia, he runs into Tiffany (Lawrence), a wild, independent, and unpredictable young woman with her own baggage.
Marlee Matlin - Children Of A Lesser God (1986)
Marlee Matlin is not only the youngest Best Leading Actress winner to date, she happens to be the only deaf woman to win the award as well. Her sterling turn in Children of a Lesser God is as deserving a win as there has ever been.
The Randa Haines film follows the torrid romance between James, a new dialect teacher at a school off the coast of New England. James' roving eye is caught by Sarah, the deaf and deliberately mute janitor assigned to cleaning the school after hours. As the two spend more time together, they can't help but fall in love.