Bradley Cooper has quietly now lost more Oscars than Glenn Close and Peter O’Toole
Bradley Cooper is a triple threat at the Academy Awards, being nominated a total of nine times in the acting, producing and writing categories. However, he has yet to take home the golden statuette. His most recent bid was for producing the Best Picture nominee “Nightmare Alley,” which lost to “CODA” at the 2022 Oscars ceremony. At nine career losses, that means Cooper has quietly now surpassed legendary performers Glenn Close and Peter O’Toole, both of whom failed to win any of their eight bids (all for acting).
Cooper’s three Oscar nominations in the Best Actor race came for “Silver Linings Playbook” (2012), “American Sniper” (2014) and “A Star Is Born” (2018), plus he earned one notice in Best Supporting Actor for “American Hustle” (2013). The multi-hyphenate was recognized four times for producing Best Picture contenders “American Sniper,” “A Star Is Born,” “Joker” (2019) and “Nightmare Alley” (2021). And he has a Best Adapted Screenplay mention to his name for co-writing the remake of “A Star Is Born.”
The actor was invited on the stage at the 2022 ceremony by co-host Regina Hall, who wanted to personally test him (plus Simu Liu, Tyler Perry and Timothee Chalamet) for Covid-19. “You’ll come backstage, take your mask off and your clothes, and I’m gonna swab the back of your mouth with my tongue,” she joked to Bradley Cooper and the other guys. “The truth is, we’re still in a pandemic!”
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Glenn Close has so far received four Oscar bids apiece in the lead and supporting categories. Her Best Actress citations were for “Fatal Attraction” (1987), “Dangerous Liaisons” (1988), “Albert Nobbs” (2011) and “The Wife” (2018). And her Best Supporting Actress noms were for “The World According to Garp” (1982), “The Big Chill” (1983), “The Natural” (1984) and “Hillbilly Elegy” (2020). Awards pundits suspect she came the closest to winning for “The Wife,” but was overtaken at the finish line by Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”).
Comparatively, all eight of Peter O’Toole’s Oscar nominations were in the Best Actor race. He was cited for “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962), “Becket” (1964), “The Lion in Winter” (1968), “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (1969), “The Ruling Class” (1972), “The Stunt Man” (1980), “My Favorite Year” (1982) and “Venus” (2006). Ten years before his death in 2013, the actor received an Honorary Academy Award in 2003 for his lifetime legacy of working in the motion picture industry.
Kenneth Branagh, an actor who contended in multiple categories like Cooper, finally won an Oscar on his eighth career nomination at the 2022 ceremony. He took home the trophy in Best Original Screenplay for “Belfast” (2021), and he was also up for Best Picture and Best Directing that same evening. Branaugh’s five previous mentions were for “Henry V” (1989) in Best Director and Best Actor, “Swan Song” (1992) in Best Live Action Short, “Hamlet” (1996) in Best Adapted Screenplay and “My Week with Marilyn” (2011) in Best Supporting Actor.
While Cooper is perhaps the biggest A-list celeb to have lost nine times, there are other industry professionals out there with even more of an Oscar IOU. They include songwriter Diane Warren (13 losses), director Federico Fellini (12), sound engineers Greg P. Russell (17), Loren L. Ryder (14), Rick Kline (11) and Anna Behlmer (10), composers Thomas Newman (15), Alex North (15) and Walter Scharf (10), art director Roland Anderson (15), cinematography George J. Folsey (13) and animator Walter Lantz (10).