The Most Successful Actor At The Oscars You’ve Never Heard Of

Walter Brennan won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award three times – Daniel Day-Lewis and Jack Nicholson are the only other men to have won a trio of statuettes – but he’s not a famous star. So who is he?

Acting wasn’t his first career

After studying engineering, he worked in a bank and served in an artillery regiment during World War I, based in France. It was there that he was exposed to poisonous gas which made his voice sound higher and more old-man-like, something that became synonymous with his screen persona.

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Having been demobbed, he travelled to Guatemala and farmed pineapples before moving to Los Angeles. He became a property developer and made a fortune, but got caught up in the Great Depression and lost all his cash. In a desperate bid to make some money, he became a film extra earning $7 a day, was subsequently introduced to legendary director Howard Hawks and the rest is history.

Between his 230 movie and TV roles over five decades, including classics ‘Rio Bravo’, ‘The Pride of the Yankees’ and ‘Red River’, he also spent a lot of time at his 12,000-acre ranch in Oregon where he built a variety store, motel and movie theatre.

Movie extras contributed significantly to his Oscar glory

Back when he was acting, background players were allowed to vote for the Academy Awards. Recognising Brennan as one of their own, he always romped the extras vote which was a great help in scooping his three awards for ‘Come and Get It’ (1936), ‘Kentucky’ (1938) and ‘The Westerner’ (1940). After his third win, extras were banned from participating in the ballot.

Still, despite their support, he was much-loved amongst the “official” acting fraternity, friends with John Wayne and Gary Cooper. Only Brennan and Katherine Hepburn have ever won Oscars three times in a row when they’ve been nominated and he also holds the record for winning the most acting awards in the shortest amount of time, as well as being the first actor to win three statuettes.

He had an authentic look

When Brennan was asked to audition in front of Howard Hawks for a role in 1935 movie ‘The Barbary Coast’, the actor surprised the director with his very first words.

“With or without?” he said and when Hawks looked confused, he reached into his mouth and pulled out his false teeth, having lost the real ones in an accident three years previously.

It was this folksy look – he actually had around a dozen sets of dentures that he used depending on the character – that turned Brennan into one of Hollywood’s most in-demand supporting actors, often playing the quirky sidekick in Westerns and frequently people far older than he was in real-life.

Born in Massachusetts but raised conservative, Brennan was a student of the Old West and liked his cowboys realistic. He preferred to wear his own clothes in movies, refusing to wash them during production and was famous for smelling ripe on-set thanks to his stinky outfit. At home, his wife forced him to keep the costume in the garage.

Pop stardom? Sure why not

Though he became more famous later in his life for playing the lead in TV show ‘The Real McCoys’ between 1957 and 1963, Brennan also reached number five in the Billboard charts with his single ‘Old Rivers’, which was released in 1962.

This played into his Old West, Southern persona, which was funny because having been born in Massachusetts, he actually had a New England accent.

The cowboys loved him

He died in 1974 from emphysema aged 80, still as one of Hollywood’s most respected character actors, with a star on the Walk of Fame and having been inducted in the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

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Image credits: Rex_Shutterstock