Only 32 Oscars have been awarded to actors of colour - here's the list

The Academy has given out 336 acting Oscars in total, not including honorary awards, with just over 9% going to people of colour 

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Megan C. Hills1 July 2020

The 2020 Oscars will be held this weekend and yet again, the awards show is drawing criticism for its nearly all-white line up of nominated actors and actresses.

Besides Cynthia Erivo’s role in Harriet as Harriet Tubman, white actors dominated the rest of the categories as performers including Jennifer Lopez, Awkwafina, Eddie Murphy, Lupita Nyong’o and Jamie Foxx were overlooked despite stellar performances.

The hashtag #OscarsSoWhite trended yet again in the wake of the nominations, after being started in 2015 by activist April Reign.

Cynthia Erivo
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Sunday’s ceremony will mark the 92nd time the Academy Awards has taken place.

29 actors of colour have won just 32 Academy Awards for their performances in total, a number which includes honorary Oscars for Sidney Poitier, Wes Studi and James Baskett plus multiple wins for the likes of Denzel Washington, Mahershala Ali and Anthony Quinn.

Taking into account the 336 Oscars for acting that have been awarded over the ceremony’s lifetime (Best Supporting categories were not introduced until the 16th Oscars), actors of colour account for roughly 9% of overall wins.

Miyoshi Umeki, the only Asian woman to ever win an acting Oscar
Uncredited/AP/Shutterstock

Black actors accounted for the majority of the wins, netting 19 Oscars starting with Hattie McDaniel - the first person of colour to ever win an acting Oscar in 1940 - through to Regina King who won last year

Latin actors were the next most likely to win with 5 awards, then Asian actors with 3 and finally Rami Malek is the only Arab actor to have ever won an Oscar.

Halle Berry and Denzel Washington in 2002
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Only 12 women of colour have won with black women receiving the majority of the awards, Rita Moreno and Mercedes Ruehl representing Latin/Hispanic actresses and Japanese actress Miyoshi Umeki winning the only award presented to an Asian woman. Only two Indigenous actors have won an Oscar - F. Murray Abraham in 1984 and an honorary Oscar for Wes Studi in 2019.

For a full list of actors of colour who have previously won, as well as memorable moments from their ceremony and speeches, read on.

1940: Hattie McDaniel

Best Supporting Actress in Gone With the Wind

The very first actor of colour to win an Academy Award was Hattie McDaniel, who starred in Gone With the Wind. According to the Hollywood Reporter, McDaniel was submitted for a nomination after she confronted the film’s producer David O. Selznick with reviews praising her performance.

McDaniel said winning the award was “one of the happiest moments of my life” and continued, “I sincerely hope I will always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry, my heart is too full to tell you just how I feel.”

As she finished her speech, she cried and made her way back to her seat.

The ceremony was held at the Ambassador Hotel’s Coconut Grove nightclub, which back then had a “no blacks” policy due to segregation at the time - Selznick had to ‘call in a special favour’ to get her into the building.

1948: James Baskett

Honorary Oscar for Song of the South

Baskett became the very first male actor of colour to win an Academy Award for acting, though it wasn’t for any of the four traditional acting categories today.

Baskett, who starred in Song of the South as Uncle Remus, was awarded an honorary Oscar for his performance. Ingrid Bergman presented him with the award.

Despite his groundbreaking accolade, Baskett’s performance role drew controversy at the time as his character Uncle Remus was viewed as a racial stereotype.

The 'Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah' singer died four months after his win.

1951: Jose Ferrer

Best Actor for Cyrano de Bergerac

Puerto Rican actor Jose Ferrer was the first Latin actor to win an Oscar, starring in the theatrical adaptation of the play Cyrano de Bergerac.

Sadly, he wasn’t there in person to accept his history-making award but phoned in from New York.

He said, “You must know that this means more to me than just the honour accord to an actor. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for what I consider a vote of confidence and an act of faith - and believe me, I will not let you down.”

1953: Anthony Quinn

Best Supporting Actor for Viva Zapata!

Hispanic American actor Anthony Quinn won his very first Oscar in 1953, but he wasn’t actually available to accept it.

Instead, his wife Katherine DeMille Quinn accepted it on his behalf and said, “I can hardly believe I’m here. I’m sorry that Tony couldn’t be here, but when I let him know today by telephone - I know he’ll be a very happy man.”

1957: Anthony Quinn

Best Supporting Actor for Lust for Life

Quinn won exactly the same award just a few years later for his turn in Lust for Life.

The American-Latin actor said in his speech, “I wanna say that I was only competing with myself.”

Addressing the other nominees, he clarified that “acting has never been a matter of competition to me” - but thanked the Academy for “letting me win that fight over myself.”

1957: Miyoshi Umeki

Best Supporting Actress for Sayonara

As Umeki ran through the auditorium to accept her speech onstage, she made history as the first ever Asian person to win an acting nod.

Dressed in a traditional kimono, she said, “I really don’t know what to say, I wish somebody would help me right now because I didn’t expect [to win], so I had nothing in my mind.”

“But right now, thank you for everyone who helped me and you, and you, and all American people,” she continued.”

She remains the only Asian woman to win an acting Oscar.​

1962: Rita Moreno

Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story

There was no hiding the look of unbridled joy on Moreno’s face as her name was announced, beating the likes of Judy Garland to the statuette.

As the first Latina woman to ever win an Oscar, her speech was also one of the shortest as she said, “I can’t believe it! Good lord. I leave you with that.”

She later was seen - still marvelling over her win - with her West Side Story co-star George Chakiris, a white actor who won Best Supporting Actor on the night for his portrayal of a Puerto Rican character.

1963: Sidney​ Poitier

Best Actor for Lilies of the Field

Poitier became the first black man to win Best Actor in 1963, when he accepted the award for his role in Lilies of the Field.

Calling it a “long journey to this moment”, he was the most dapper man in the room in a tailcoat as he took to the stage after his name was announced.

He said, “I am naturally indebted to countless numbers of people.”

Anne Bancroft, who presented him with the award, looked more ecstatic about his win than he did - with the pair grinning and holding hands as they left the stage.

1983: Sir Ben Kingsley

Best Actor for Gandhi

It was twenty years before another actor of colour won at the Oscars, with Sir Ben Kingsley breaking the drought.

The actor, who is half Indian, won for his portrayal of Gandhi and prior to his win called playing the icon an “awesome responsibility, and the weight of it sort of lands between your shoulder blades and bends you.”

The classically trained actor said he was “bereft” of all words and was “custodian of this award for a lot of people.”

He finished his speech on the night saying, “This is an Oscar for vision and for courage, and for acting and for peace.”

Controversy surrounded the film Gandhi at the time, as it emerged that make-up had been applied to Kingsley’s face to darken his skin for the role.

1983: Louis Gossett Jr.

Best Supporting Actor in An Officer and a Gentleman

Louis Gossett Jr. took to the stage in 1983 to accept an award for Best Supporting Actor.

Presented to him by Susan Sarandon and Christopher Reeve, he took a moment to make a quick joke at the Superman star’s expense.

When he shook Reeve's hand, he pretended that the actor’s grip was as super heroically strong as he flinched back and began shaking his wrist.

The actor, who pinned a red rose to his lapel, paid tribute to his family and the “spirit” of his great grandmother who “guides” him - she passed away at the age of 117 years old

1984: F. Murray Abraham

Best Actor for Amadeus

Assyrian actor F. Murray Abraham won Best Actor for Amadeus, in which he played Antonio Salieri.

1985: Haing Ngor

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Best Supporting Actor for The Killing Fields

Ngor is the only Asian man to have won Best Supporting Actor. He won it for his role in The Killing Fields, a project set during Cambodia’s blood-soaked Khmer Rouge reign.

Ngor, who played a Cambodian journalist named Dith Pran in the film, said the win was “unbelievable, but so is my entire life” and said, “I thank Warner Brothers for helping me to tell my story to the world [and] let the world know what happened in my country.”

He also tried to bring his co-star, Sam Waterston, onstage with him to share the honour but Waterston was seen pushing him to go up on his own.

Ngor was a doctor and had at one point been imprisoned in Khmer Rouge concentration camps, alongside his wife who died during childbirth in the camp.

He and his niece later escaped the regime before moving to the United States in 1980, and he gave his niece his Oscar, telling her, “This is for you. I did this for you.”

Ngor continued to act for the rest of his life and also worked as an activist, spreading awareness about the atrocities committed under the Khmer Rouge’s regime and encouraging the world to support the country.

He also published an autobiography and was shot outside his Chinatown home in Los Angeles at the age of 55 years old.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the local and overseas Cambodian community ‘nearly unanimously’ believe that he was assassinated as a result of his activism - though investigators ‘did not uncover evidence of a political hit.’

1990: Denzel Washington

Best Supporting Actor in Glory

Washington beat the likes of Marlon Brando and Danny Aiello to win his first Academy Award, for his portrayal of Private Silas Tripp in Glory.

Pulling out his speech from his jacket pocket, he said, “Thank God I get to use this.”

“I’d also like to pay homage to the 54th [regiment], the black soldiers, who helped to make this country free,” he finished his speech.

1991: Whoopi Goldberg

Best Supporting Actress in Ghost

Washington was back on the Oscars stage in 1991 to present the Best Supporting Actress award and as he said Goldberg’s name, the auditorium burst into rapturous applause.

Goldberg screamed as her name was announced and ran up the stairs to accept the award, saying, “Ever since I was a little kid I wanted this.”

She would later go on to EGOT status, though her Oscar was actually stolen in 2002 after she sent it back to the Academy for cleaning and replating.

It was stolen from a UPS shipping container, according to the Associated Press, but was later found in a rubbish bin at an airport.

Goldberg later said, “Oscar will never leave my house again.”

1992: Mercedes Ruehl

Best Supporting Actress for The Fisher King

Ruehl, who is Cuban, German and Irish, won for her role in The Fisher King in 1992.

As she accepted her award, she said all the struggles she had gone through to reach this point had now become “anecdotes from my memoirs.”

1997: Cuba Gooding Jr.

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Best Supporting Actor in Jerry Maguire

Cuba Gooding Jr. jumped onstage as his name was announced, posing and raising his arms to the crowd - including Will Smith, who leapt to his feet.

Calling Tom Cruise his “brother”, he said, “Tom said don’t forget to thank your wife.”

As an ecstatic Cuba Gooding Jr. shouted the names of all the people he loved and studios he needed to thank, music began to play over his speech but he only started shouting over it into the microphone - prompting many celebrities to rise to their feet as they cheered him on.

2000: Benicio Del Toro

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Best Supporting Actor in Traffic

Del Toro managed to win the year that he had his first ever Academy nomination, for his role as a bilingual Mexican cop in the film Traffic.

He dedicated the award to the people of two places: Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Mexico.

2002:​ Halle Berry

Best Actress in Monster’s Ball

Berry truly could not believe that she had won at the 74th Annual Academy Awards, as she screamed when her name was announced and continued to repeat, “Oh my god.”

She was unable to start her speech as she was so overcome with emotion, shaking and crying, before taking to the stage and becoming the first black woman to win Best Actress.

She said, “This moment is so much bigger than me... It’s for every nameless, faceless woman of colour who now has a chance because this door has been opened.”

“I am so honoured,” she continued, “and I thank the Academy for choosing me to be the vessel for which this blessing now flows.”

As the Academy tried to cut short her speech, she shouted out, “I gotta take the 74 years here, I gotta take this time.”

While she made history, sadly Berry remains the only black woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress.

In 2017, she revealed how disappointed she was with how far the Oscars had come since then - saying that in 2016, after no actors of colour were nominated for acting awards for the second year in a row - that she felt her win “meant nothing.”

She said to Teen Vogue, “I sat there and I really thought, 'Wow, that moment really meant nothing. It meant nothing. I thought it meant something, but I think it meant nothing.’”

2002: Sidney ​Poitier (Honorary)

Sidney Poitier delivered one of the best Oscars speeches of all time in 2002, after Denzel Washington presented him with an honorary award.

Recalling his early years coming to Hollywood at the age of 22 years old, he said, “Back then no route had been established for where I was hoping to go. No pathway left in evidence for me to trace. No custom for me to follow. Yet, here I am this evening at the end of a journey that in 1949 would have been considered almost impossible and, in fact, might never have been set in motion were there not an untold number of courageous unselfish choices made by a handful of visionary American filmmakers, directors, writers and producers.”

He continued, “I accept this award in memory of all the African American actors and actresses who went before me in the difficult years, on whose shoulders I was privileged to stand to see where I might go.”

2002: Denzel Washington

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Best Actor in Training Day

Washington ended up winning Best Actor for his role in Training Day - the same year that Berry won her history-making award - and quipped, “Two birds in one night, huh?”

It was a notable night for Washington as Sidney Poitier, the first black actor to ever win an Oscar, was also honoured with a honorary award.

He joked, “Forty years I’ve been chasing Sidney and what do they do? They give him one on the same night. There’s nothing I’d rather do, sir.”

Both Washington and Poitier clearly admired one another, as Poitier stood up in the balcony he was seated in and held out his Oscar as Washington did the same.

He was later seen grinning and celebrating with Berry after the ceremony, as they both showed off their statues.

2005: Jamie Foxx

Best Actor for Ray

A very nervous Jamie Foxx held hands with his daughter Corinne as he waited for his name to be called, and she was the very first person he hugged after he was announced as the winner.

He also graciously shook hands with Leonardo DiCaprio, who was also up against him for his role in The Aviator.

He started off his speech by singing into the microphone, prompting the audience to sing back to him.

As he thanked the usual people and also welled up remembering his late grandmother, he said, “I wanna thank my daughter who told me before I got up here, if you don’t win dad, you’re still good..I see Oprah, I see Halle, I just wanna say your names. I wanna talk to you later.”

He also did an impression of Sidney Poitier, recalling how the former Oscar winner once told him, “I look in your eyes and there was connection. I give to you responsibility.”

2005: Morgan Freeman

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Best Supporting Actor for Million Dollar Baby

Morgan Freeman proved you’re never too old to win your first Oscar, getting his first statue at 67 years old.

It was his fourth nomination, following nods for his roles in films like The Shawshank Redemption and Driving Miss Daisy, and the room gave him a standing ovation when his name was called.

2007: Jennifer Hudson

Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls​

Jennifer Hudson proved she was miles away from her past as an American Idol winner in 2007, after she won for her role in the musical drama Dreamgirls.

An emotional Hudson said she had to “take the moment in” as her co-star Beyonce watched on.

While she didn’t get to finish her speech and was played off, she managed to shout out Jennifer Holliday - who originally played her role in the stage musical - before walking off.

At the time, she was the youngest black woman to win an Oscar at the age of 25 years old.

2007: Forest Whitaker

Best Actor for Last King of Scotland

Whitaker admitted he was “overwhelmed” when he took to the stage, choosing to read his winners’ speech off note cards.

He said, “When I first started acting, it was because of my desire to connect to everyone to that thing inside each of us that light that I believe exists in all of us because acting for me is believing in that connection.”

2010: Mo’Nique​

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Best Supporting Actress in Precious

Mo’Nique won for her role in Precious and started her speech off with a pointed barb, saying, “I want to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics.”

She also thanked her director, Tyler Perry, and executive producer Oprah Winfrey before moving onto her husband, who she said taught her to “forego doing what’s popular in order to do what’s right.”

2012: Octavia Spencer

Best Supporting Actor for The Help

Spencer had to be pulled to her feet by those standing beside her as her name was called, before director Tate Taylor held her arm and helped her up to the Oscars stage.

The auditorium broke out into a standing ovation before she even began her speech and as she thanked Taylor, she was overcome with emotion.

As she sped through her speech and the Academy warned her to “please wrap up”, she said, “I’m wrapping up, I’m sorry, I’m freaking out.”

2014: Lupita Nyong’o

Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years a Slave

Nyong’o dominated the Best Supporting Actress category as well as the red carpet in 2014, giving a beautiful heartfelt speech as she stunned in a Cinderella-blue Prada gown.

Nyong’o immediately put her head in her hands and embraced her brother Junior, who was seated beside her, before being hugged by director Steve McQueen and her co-stars Brad Pitt and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

She said, “It doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else’s. And so, I want to salute the spirit of [my character] Patsy.”

As she thanked director McQueen for “putting me in this position”, she called starring in his film the “joy of my life” and also celebrated Ejiofor for his “fearlessness”.

2017: Viola Davis

Best Supporting Actress for Fences

Davis’ opening lines to her Oscars speech were some of the most moving.

She opened her speech, “You know, there’s one place where all the people with the greatest potential are buried. And that’s the graveyard.”

“People ask me all the time, what kind of stories do you want to tell Viola and I say, ‘Exhume those bodies. Exhume those stories. The stories of those who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition. People who fell in love and lost.'”

2017: Mahershala Ali

Best Supporting Actor in Moonlight

Mahershala Ali’s win for Moonlight was less dramatic than Moonlight’s win for Best Picture.

Instead of immediately going onstage, he went straight to director Barry Jenkins to shake his hand as well as the likes of Jeff Bridges as he walked onstage.

It was the second most exciting thing to happen to him that week, as he also revealed that his wife had given birth four days prior.

2019: Mahershala Ali

Best Supporting Actor in Green Book

It’s already impressive enough that Ali won a second Oscar - it’s even more impressive that he managed to score his second one just two years after his first.

Ali, who was also one of the best dressed on the night in a modern suit and beanie, thanked his “partner” Viggo Mortensen and his family.

2019: Rami Malek

Best Actor in Bohemian Rhapsody

Malek is the first and only Arab to win an Oscar for Best Actor.

When Malek’s name was called, he instantly turned to kiss his co-star and girlfriend Lucy Boynton - kissing her three times before he eventually went onstage.

When he got up there, he paid tribute to his late father who he said is “looking down on me right now”.

He said, “I am the son of immigrants from Egypt, I’m a first generation American and part of my story is being written right now. And I could not be more grateful to each and every one of you.”

However, Malek may have been a little too exuberant after his win as he ended up accidentally falling down the stairs after his speech, narrowly avoiding the orchestra pit, and was later treated by paramedics.

According to comedian Chelsea Peretti who saw it happen, she said, “There was a hole in the stairs with like a 20 foot drop to the orchestra and homeduder almost fell down but caught himself on his arms and was dangling.”

2019: Wes Studi (Honorary Award)

Honorary Oscar

Cherokee actor Wes Studi became the first Native American actor to ever win an Oscar, after he was awarded an honorary award last year.

2019: Regina King

Best Supporting Actress for If Beale Street Could Talk

Regina King beat the likes of Emma Stone, Amy Adams and Rachel Weisz to an Academy Award in her category, winning for her role in the James Baldwin adaptation If Beale Street Could Talk.

As she cried throughout her speech, her mother who was seated beside her did too and she said, “To be standing here representing one of the greatest artists of our time James Baldwin is a little surreal.

James Baldwin birthed this baby and [director Barry Jenkins] you nurtured her, you surrounded her with so much love and support.”

Besides the Oscar, she also won one of the most viral Oscar moments of that year.

As King tried to get to her feet to accept the award, she ended up treading on her dress - prompting Captain America who was seated beside her to leap to his feet and chivalrously help her onto the stage.