Katharine Hepburn won her fourth and last Best Actress Oscar in 1981 for the family melodrama "On Golden Pond."  For many decades she was the only actress to have been nominated 12 times, all in the lead category.

Robert Ryan, an excellent actor who specialized in tough roles, usually in film noir, crime policiers, and Westerns, was nominated just once for an Oscar, in 1947, in the supporting category for “Crossfire.”

Red Buttons won the 1957 Supporting Actor Oscar for the interracial melodrama, “Sayonara,” which was also nominated for Best Picture (see below). It was his first and last Oscar nomination.

The Directors Guild of America (DGA) has selected five nominees for its documentary award – Lixin Fan for "Last Train Home," Charles Ferguson for "Inside Job," Alex Gibney for "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer," Davis Guggenheim for "Waiting for Superman" and the team of Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger for "Restrepo."

Sissy Spacek won the 1980 Best Actress Oscar for the musical biopic, "A Coal Miner's Daughter," in which she portrayed country singer Loretta Lynn.