Oscars: American-born acting winners cover 36 states and territories
At the inaugural Academy Awards in 1929, native Pennsylvanian Janet Gaynor made history as the first American-born performer to win an Oscar by taking the Best Actress prize for her body of work in “7th Heaven,” “Street Angel,” and “Sunrise.” Over the subsequent 95 years, 215 more thespians originating from the United States won the academy’s favor, meaning the country has now produced 68.1% of all individual acting Oscar recipients. Considering the last decade alone, the rate of such winners is even higher, at 70.3%.
At this point, 96.8% of American-born acting Oscar victors have hailed from one of 34 actual states. Of those constituting the remainder, three (Goldie Hawn, Helen Hayes, and William Hurt) originated from the federal District of Columbia, while four (Benicio Del Toro, Jose Ferrer, Rita Moreno, and Joaquin Phoenix) were born in the territory of Puerto Rico. New York (home to 49 winners) is the most common birth state among the entire group, followed by California (34), Illinois (13), Massachusetts (11), and Pennsylvania (11).
More from GoldDerby
Can FX's 'Shogun' match Emmy success of original 1980 miniseries?
Oscars flashback: How Anthony Hopkins scored that shocking 2nd trophy for 'The Father'
Bearing in mind our specific birthplace focus, the 16 states that have yet to produce any winning performers are Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. The same applies to the permanently inhabited territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and U.S. Virgin Islands.
It is worth noting that a few actors born in the U.S. lived some of their childhood years in at least one other country – usually the birthplace of one or both of their parents. Included in this subset are male actors Gary Cooper (England), Ernest Borgnine (Italy), and Brendan Fraser (Canada; Netherlands; Switzerland) as well as actresses Beatrice Straight (England), Anjelica Huston (Ireland; England), Marcia Gay Harden (Germany; Greece; Japan), and Sandra Bullock (Austria; Germany).
The 214 Oscar-winning performers listed below are sorted purely by birth state, meaning we have not taken any post-birth moves within the country into account. Excluded from the roster entirely are Sidney Poitier (born in Florida) and Nicole Kidman (Hawaii), who are primarily associated with their parents’ home countries (The Bahamas and Australia, respectively) despite technically being born in America.
Alabama
Louise Fletcher
Octavia Spencer
Arizona
Troy Kotsur
Emma Stone
Arkansas
Mary Steenburgen
California
Mahershala Ali
Fay Bainter
Jeff Bridges
Nicolas Cage
Jessica Chastain
Cher
Jamie Lee Curtis
Laura Dern
Leonardo DiCaprio
Robert Duvall
Sally Field
Jodie Foster
Gloria Grahame
Gene Hackman
Tom Hanks
Marcia Gay Harden
Dustin Hoffman
Helen Hunt
Anjelica Huston
Timothy Hutton
Angelina Jolie
Diane Keaton
Regina King
Brie Larson
Rami Malek
Liza Minnelli
Tatum O’Neal
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gregory Peck
Sean Penn
Tim Robbins
Cliff Robertson
Sam Rockwell
Jo Van Fleet
Connecticut
Ed Begley
Ernest Borgnine
Katharine Hepburn
Florida
Faye Dunaway
Georgia
Kim Basinger
Charles Coburn
Melvyn Douglas
Holly Hunter
Julia Roberts
Joanne Woodward
Illinois
Patricia Arquette
Mary Astor
Charlton Heston
William Holden
Jennifer Hudson
Burl Ives
Karl Malden
Dorothy Malone
Marlee Matlin
Mercedes McCambridge
Frances McDormand
Jason Robards
Robin Williams
Indiana
Anne Baxter
Brendan Fraser
Iowa
Cloris Leachman
Donna Reed
John Wayne
Kansas
Hattie McDaniel
Kentucky
George Clooney
Jennifer Lawrence
Patricia Neal
Louisiana
Jared Leto
Reese Witherspoon
Maryland
Mo’Nique
Massachusetts
Casey Affleck
Jack Albertson
Walter Brennan
Bette Davis
Geena Davis
Olympia Dukakis
Ruth Gordon
Josephine Hull
Allison Janney
Jack Lemmon
Estelle Parsons
Michigan
Ellen Burstyn
Kim Hunter
J.K. Simmons
Minnesota
Jessica Lange
Gale Sondergaard
Gig Young
Missouri
Wallace Beery
Chris Cooper
Jane Darwell
Kevin Kline
Geraldine Page
Ginger Rogers
Dianne Wiest
Shelley Winters
Jane Wyman
Montana
Gary Cooper
Nebraska
Marlon Brando
James Coburn
Sandy Dennis
Henry Fonda
Hilary Swank
New Jersey
Michael Douglas
Linda Hunt
Thomas Mitchell
Jack Nicholson
Joe Pesci
Eva Marie Saint
Frank Sinatra
Kevin Spacey
Meryl Streep
New York
Alan Arkin
Martin Balsam
Anne Bancroft
Humphrey Bogart
Shirley Booth
Alice Brady
Adrien Brody
George Burns
Red Buttons
James Cagney
Art Carney
Jennifer Connelly
Robert De Niro
Robert Downey Jr.
Richard Dreyfuss
Patty Duke
James Dunn
Jane Fonda
Whoopi Goldberg
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Louis Gossett Jr.
Lee Grant
Anne Hathaway
Susan Hayward
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Judy Holliday
Celeste Holm
George Kennedy
Burt Lancaster
Martin Landau
Melissa Leo
Lee Marvin
Walter Matthau
Edmond O’Brien
Al Pacino
Anne Revere
Mercedes Ruehl
Susan Sarandon
Mira Sorvino
Maureen Stapleton
Rod Steiger
Beatrice Straight
Barbra Streisand
Marisa Tomei
Claire Trevor
Jon Voight
Christopher Walken
Denzel Washington
Teresa Wright
North Carolina
Ariana DeBose
Julianne Moore
Ohio
Warner Baxter
Halle Berry
George Chakiris
Clark Gable
Joel Grey
Eileen Heckart
Dean Jagger
Paul Newman
Oklahoma
Van Heflin
Ben Johnson
Jennifer Jones
Brad Pitt
Pennsylvania
F. Murray Abraham
Ethel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore
Broderick Crawford
Janet Gaynor
Shirley Jones
Grace Kelly
Jack Palance
Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Will Smith
James Stewart
Puerto Rico (territory)
Benicio Del Toro
Jose Ferrer
Rita Moreno
Joaquin Phoenix
South Carolina
Viola Davis
Tennessee
Kathy Bates
Morgan Freeman
Texas
Joan Crawford
Jamie Foxx
Tommy Lee Jones
Matthew McConaughey
Sissy Spacek
Forest Whitaker
Renée Zellweger
Utah
Loretta Young
Virginia
Sandra Bullock
Shirley MacLaine
George C. Scott
Washington
Bing Crosby
Washington, D.C. (federal district)
Goldie Hawn
Helen Hayes
William Hurt
Wisconsin
Don Ameche
Fredric March
Spencer Tracy
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?
SIGN UP for Gold Derby newsletters and updates
Best of GoldDerby
Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.