Best Actress, 1940

Awards presented February 27, 1941

The nominees were ... 
... when they should have been ... 
Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle.

Rogers's Oscar looks a bit like one of those semihonorary awards that get presented to performers who have done better work in better films but somehow never got rewarded for it. She had been in the movies since the early 1930s, and in addition to the magical teaming with Fred Astaire, had given delightful performances in Stage Door and Bachelor Mother, among other films. Her career lasted into the 1950s, and in 1965 she came out of semiretirement to appear on Broadway in Hello, Dolly! Rogers had a special quality of being bold but not brassy -- the girl next door, if that girl happens to be a sensational dancer and gifted comedian.

... when it should have gone to ...
Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story.

One of the most professionally made romantic comedies ever to come out of Hollywood, a tribute to taste and talent, particularly that of Cary Grant, James Stewart, director George Cukor, and Donald Ogden Stewart, who adapted Philip Barry's play for the screen. But mostly to that of Hepburn, who had worked with Barry on the play, turning what had often seemed like her weaknesses -- artificiality and condescension -- into integral parts of the character, and then allowing her to transcend them at the end. She had bought the rights to the filming of the play and used it to revive her screen career, which had stalled. After the commercial failure of Bringing Up Baby was blamed on Hepburn, who had been labeled "box office poison" on an infamous list compiled by a theater owners' organization, she bought her way out of her contract at RKO, went to Broadway and had a smash with Barry's play, and returned able to name her terms in a new contract at MGM.

Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story 

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