You have questions. I have some answers.
Q: George C. Scott and Marlon Brando both turned down their best actor Oscars, for “Patton” and “The Godfather” respectively. Have there been any other Hollywood or Broadway performers who have also turned down this much coveted award? I would find it hard to believe.
A: Besides Scott and Brando, the Oscar was turned down by a third person, Dudley Nichols, who won the Best Adapted Screenplay award for his script for “The Informer” in 1936. The book “Inside Oscar,” by Mason Wiley and Damien Bona, says that two new unions, the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild, were scrapping with the Hollywood studios and the Oscar-issuing Motion Picture Academy. That included a boycott of the 1936 Oscars ceremony and Nichols refusing to accept his Oscar. In fact, according to the book, Nichols sent his Oscar back twice. Two years later, Nichols — by then the president of the Writers Guild — accepted his award.
