The Big Picture

Walter Brennan won three Oscars for acting in just five years, a rapid success that raised suspicions of rigging or favoritism. Brennan was a talented character actor known for playing crotchety old men, often providing comic relief in films with iconic actors like John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart. Brennan’s three Oscar-winning performances showcased his range, from a comedic role in Come and Get It to a dramatic turn as the villainous Judge Roy Bean in The Westerner.

Here’s one of the strangest Academy Awards facts you’ll ever come across: In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Walter Brennan won three Oscars for acting within five years. That’s the kind of rapid fire success that would make Meryl Streep envious, and it’s success that has the fumes of something fishy coming off of it. How could somebody win so many awards so quickly? Given that this was a time when only few notable actors, including Luise Rainer, Bette Davis, and Spencer Tracy, had won more than one Oscar for their entire career, it makes no sense. Surely there was some level of chicanery or machination behind the scenes to give a glorified character actor like Brennan this level of luster? Well, sort of … kind of … but it depends on your definition of the word “rigged.”

Who Was Three-Time Oscar Winner Walter Brennan?
Image via Warner Bros. 

Walter Brennan was one of the first great character actors of Hollywood, having a career spanning 40 years. This was thanks in large part to his ability to dependably play crotchety old men who served as the comic relief for the strapping heroes. Modern audiences are most likely to remember the later period of his career, when he had prominent roles in films like Rio Bravo and The Far Country. With his wispy balding hair, gruffly damaged voice, and skill at performing with both dentures and no teeth (he lost all of them in a fight), Brennan was a consistent highlight for his down-to-earth humility being paired with the superheroism of the likes of John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart. Part of his success as an actor was that Brennan always looked older than he really was, and it opened up the range in which he could play different ages sooner than most actors. This would wind up being important for his legendary Oscar run.

The Films That Walter Brennan Won His Oscars For

The Best Supporting Actor category was first introduced in 1937, and Walter Brennan became the first ever winner for his performance in Come and Get It. It’s about a life-long rivalry between two former friends, the lumber mill owner Barney Glasgow (Edward Arnold) and Swan Bostrom (Brennan). Barney is in love with a saloon singer named Lotta (Frances Farmer), but he gives up on a relationship with her so he can marry into wealth. Years later, Swan marries Lotta and has a daughter named Lotta (Frances Farmer, again) and Barney falls for Lotta, Jr. (very weird), which leads to shenanigans. With a thick Swedish accent, a puppy dog earnestness, and a firm handle on when a moment gets more serious, this is arguably the greatest range that Brennan shows in his three roles. It’s one of the biggest comic creations of Brennan’s career, and he bursts off the screen with an infectious gumption that solidifies his likability. By the end, he’s fully grown into a deeply conflicted man who just wants the best for his daughter, and it’s by far the most satisfying piece of storytelling in the film, thanks mostly to Brennan’s performance.

Released in 1938, Kentucky is essentially “Romeo & Juliet but horse racing” about a family feud between the Dillons and the Goodwins. Jack Dillon (Richard Greene) doesn’t want to join his father’s banking business, instead getting involved in horse racing, thanks to his falling for Sally Goodwin (Loretta Young), whose family owns horse stables. Brennan plays Sally’s uncle, Peter, and he serves as a conduit for their developing romance and ongoing family feud. His performance is the one most indicative of the archetype he spent most of the second half of his career playing: a brash, irascible, stubborn old coot who’s proud of his position in life and fancies himself wiser than the average individual. Fitting for a man who spends a life devoted to horses, he brays his way through the film, loudly guffawing and complaining at his problems until they get fixed, usually by other people. Once again, Brennan is called upon to be primarily comic relief, gradually evolving into a main emotional hook via a dramatic death scene, and he pulls it off well enough.

The third film, and the one featuring Brennan’s best work of the three, is The Westerner, in which he faced off against the legendary Gary Cooper as the villainous Judge Roy Bean. Bean (Brennan) runs a small town with an iron fist, hanging anyone who defies “the law” as he sees fit and gaining money via land-grabs and bogus fines. Cole Harden (Cooper) rides into town and is sentenced to death on trumped-up charges of horse thievery and narrowly escapes death by telling Bean that he can get him a lock of hair from Bean’s favorite actress. This leads to a cat and mouse chase of deceit and dubious friendship between Cole and Roy, and Brennan’s performance is so strong because he plays it so casually and ingratiating. In a manner similar to Denzel Washington in Training Day, Bean is imposing because he has no interest in questioning himself, and he conducts all of his affairs with the breezy comfort of a practitioner who’s been at it for years and knows how to play the game. It’s in the way that he can sidle up to Cole to strike a deal, or how you can see glimmers of innocence in his awe of his favorite actress, that Brennan makes Roy into a man all too human in his hunger and drive, and makes this performance clearly the one most deserving of an Oscar. But still … did he really deserve three in five years?

Related Only One Person Has Won the Best Picture Oscar Two Years in a Row Winning an Academy Award for Best Picture twice in a row is a singular accolade held only by this filmmaker.

Image via Warner Bros.

While it’s always healthy to doubt the “deserving” status of any Oscar winner, and to remind ourselves that politics and campaigning always plays a role in every winner to some extent, it’s particularly notable in this case. While many respected Walter Brennan’s acting ability, it was often speculated that the reason he won so many Oscars so quickly was because, at the time, extras were allowed to vote. According to Cinema Sight, his last two wins were “said to be due to the high level of support he received from the extras union whose members were allowed to vote in the Academy Awards from 1936 to 1940. His third win on his third nomination for 1940’s The Westerner caused such a scandal that the extras’ voting rights were taken away.” That theory seems spot since, after the rule was disbanded, Brennan only received one more Oscar nomination during the rest of his career — a Best Supporting Actor nod for Sergeant York. Once he got older, his career essentially settled into one of consistent television shows and family films. There’s certainly nothing wrong with carrying on a career like that, but it’s not one that measures up to the alleged luster of a three-time Academy Award winner.

None of this is to cast any aspersions on Walter Brennan’s character or to claim that he had anything to do with the extras being so giddy for him. By all accounts, Brennan was simply an actor who gained a lot of respect when he was an extra, and his fellow extra members saw fit to pay it forward. But in this current climate, where we’re in the midst of Hollywood’s awards season and seeing actors potentially on the cusp of making history, it’s important to be reminded that the Academy Awards have always had an undertone of political machination to them, that it isn’t truly all just about the art for the art’s sake. Need I remind anyone of the devastation that Miramax wrought in 1998, when they successfully lobbied the Academy to award Shakespeare in Love with Best Picture instead of Saving Private Ryan. It might be beating a dead horse, at this point, but it’s a potent reminder that the wheels of the hype train for accolades have always been greased with the sweat of those looking to get their agendas on the biggest stage in Hollywood.

The Westerner can be watched on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.

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