On April 14, 1969, during the 41st Oscars, the legendary Katharine Hepburn and the rising star Barbra Streisand both won the award for Best Actress. It was the first and only tie for Best Actress in the history of the Oscars.
Katharine Hepburn was nominated for her role as Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter. By this time, Hepburn was already a Hollywood star. On the other side was Barbra Streisand, a 26-year-old making her film debut in the movie musical Funny Girl. Streisand played Fanny Brice, a role she had already made famous on the Broadway stage.
When the presenter, Ingrid Bergman, opened the envelope, she was visibly shocked. She announced to the crowd, “It’s a tie!” Both women had received exactly 3,030 votes from the Academy members.
Because Hepburn rarely attended award ceremonies, she was not there to accept her Oscar in person. This left the spotlight entirely on Barbra Streisand.
Hepburn holds the record for winning the most Best Actress Oscars, winning four Best Actress Oscars out of 12 nominations during her 67-year career. She won for Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981).
However, she never actually showed up to the ceremony to collect any of them.
As Streisand walked onto the stage, she looked at the golden statue and whispered the famous line from her movie: “Hello, gorgeous!”
Streisand has won two Oscars, one for acting in Funny Girl and one for writing the song “Evergreen.” She was also the first woman to win an Oscar for composing music and the first to write, produce, direct, and star in a major movie (Yentl). She’s also one of the best-selling female recording artists of all time, with over 150–200 million records sold worldwide. She is also one of the few people to win every major award, including the Grammy, Emmy, Tony, and Golden Globe.
The 1969 Oscars were the first to be broadcast on TV all over the world, reaching 37 different countries. It was also the first time the ceremony was held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.
While ties are extremely rare at the Oscars, they aren’t impossible. Before 1969, there had only been one other tie in an acting category. In 1932, Wallace Beery and Frederic March shared the Best Actor award. However, the rules back then were different; a tie was declared if one person was within three votes of the other.
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