Oscar Winning Debut

The first person to win a lead acting Oscar for their debut performance was Shirley Booth, who won Best Actress in 1953 for Come Back, Little Sheba. The film was also nominated for best Supporting Actress (Terry Moore). Other actors and actresses had won supporting performance Oscars for debut performances before this, but this was the first time for a lead. Three other women have since won Best Actress for their debut performances, but to date nobody has won Best Actor for a debut performance.

Booth plays Lola Delaney, a frumpy, unambitious middle aged housewife who rarely leaves the house and endlessly obsesses over her dog, Little Sheba, who disappeared weeks before. She rents a room to Marie (Moore), a young, pretty college student who draws an improper amount of attention from Lola's husband, Doc (Burt Lancaster), a self-conscious chiropractor who wants only to forget or outrun his past. He has a lot to want to forget, too - he dropped out of medical school to marry Lola when she got pregnant, only to have her lose the baby. Then he inherited enough money from the death of his parents to return to medical school, but became an alcoholic, losing the money and most of his patients because of his uncontrollable drinking and fighting. Doc's interest in Marie at first seems to be fatherly, but it eventually develops into temptation in more than one form. He resists the urge to cheat on his wife, an urge driven more by desire to recapture his lost youth than by lust, but he has a disastrous relapse into drinking.

Lancaster is captivating, as he always is, but he seems a bit miscast here. He is wonderful in the role, but his performance seems a bit hampered by his reputation. Lancaster, over his career, has played characters who are tough, confident, successful and self-assured. So as great as he is here, it is a bit of a challenge to accept him as somebody so weak-willed, meek, and lacking in control over his own life. Moore is good, but her character is more a means of driving the plot than as an entity of her own. But Shirley Booth really shines here. Her dotty, intrusive behavior, annoying at first, is gradually revealed to be her defense mechanism. She has suffered the same setbacks as Doc, and has had to be the source of strength to carry her husband through their difficulties. Her refusal to accept that Little Sheba won't return gives her a diversion, something to focus on so she doesn't have to think about her lost youth, her lost prettiness, her lost child.

Movie trivia question: What is the most recent black-and-white film to win the Oscar for Best Picture?