Miyoshi Umeki remains the only Asian actress to win an Oscar, while two Caucasian actresses have won for playing Asian characters. No actor or actress of Asian descent was nominated for the 2018 Academy Awards. Kathryn Bigelow is the only woman to win Best Director, and Meryl Streep has the most nominations. Hattie McDaniel was the first African-American to win an Oscar, but was seated in the back due to segregation.
When Japanese actress Miyoshi Umeki won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1957 for her role in Sayonara, it was a landmark moment: Umeki had become the first and only Asian actress to win an Oscar. More than 60 years later, that hasn’t changed. However, two Caucasian actresses have won Oscars for playing Asian characters. Luise Rainer won Best Actress for playing a Chinese farm wife in the 1937 film The Good Earth, while Linda Hunt took home Best Supporting Actress for playing a Chinese-Australian man in The Year of Living Dangerously of 1982. In recent years, Hollywood has attempted to remedy the fact that the vast majority of awards have historically gone to Caucasian entertainers, as underlined by the #OscarsSoWhite controversy in 2016. However, no actor or actress of Asian descent has earned a nomination at the the 90th Academy Awards in 2018.
Oscar ups and downs:
As of 2018, Kathryn Bigelow is the only woman to have won a Best Director Oscar; only five women were nominated for the award.
When Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American entertainer to win an Oscar in 1940, she was sitting in the back of the room due to a strict segregation policy.
Meryl Streep has earned more Academy Award nominations than any other actor or actress, with 21 nominations (and three wins), as of 2018.
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