The list of sorority women who have won Academy Awards:
Best Picture
Nancy Utley Jacobs, Chi Omega, President of Fox Searchlight, Producers of 2014’s Best Picture 12 Years a Slave and 2015’s Birdman
Best Actress
Kathy Bates, Alpha Delta Pi, Misery
Faye Dunaway, Pi Beta Phi, Network
Jennifer Jones, Kappa Alpha Theta, The Song of Bernadette
Patricia Neal, Pi Beta Phi, Hud
Eva Marie Saint, Delta Gamma, On the Waterfront
Joanne Woodward, Chi Omega, Three Faces of Eve (And she made her own dress for the festivities! https://twitter.com/ChiOArchives/status/305797317385146370/photo/1)
Best Supporting Actress
Eileen Heckart, Pi Beta Phi, Butterflies Are Free
Cloris Leachman, Gamma Phi Beta, The Last Picture Show
Hattie McDaniel, Sigma Gamma Rho, Gone With the Wind
Costume Design
Edith Head, Delta Zeta, The Heiress, Samson and Deliah, All About Eve, A Place in the Sun, Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Facts of Life, and The Sting
Mary Wills, Kappa Alpha Theta, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm
Director, Short Action Film
Christine Lahti, Delta Gamma, Lieberman in Love
Make-Up
Tami Lane, Alpha Chi Omega, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Oscar Tidbit – The play on which the Academy Award winning Best Picture Chicago is based was written by Marine Dallas Watkins, a Kappa Alpha Theta. She wrote a three-act play, “A Brave Little Woman,” in 1926 while attending the new Yale School of Drama in 1926. Its name was changed to Chicago when it debuted on Broadway later that year.
Patricia Neal (Courtesy of Northwestern University)
Patricia Neal (seated in the middle of the couch) surrounded by Pi Beta Phis, 1981
This was a tough list to cobble together. If you know of winners who are not on this list, please let me know. I’d love to have a list of the fraternity men who have won Academy Awards; if anyone would like to put one together, I’d be happy to post it.
© Fran Becque www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All rights reserved.
