41st Academy Awards: History and Background

The 41st Academy Awards were presented on April 14, 1969, to honor the films of 1968. They were the first Oscars to be staged at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, and the first with no host since the 20th Academy Awards.

Oliver! became the only Best Picture winner to have received a G-rating prior to winning, the ratings system having replaced the old Hays Code on November 1, 1968 (though a number of Best Picture winners have received the rating retroactively). It was the last British film to win Best Picture until Chariots of Fire in 1982, and the last musical to win until Chicago in 2003.

The year was notable for the first—and so far, only—tie for Best Actress: Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand shared the award, for their performances in The Lion in Winter and Funny Girl, respectively, marking the third occurrence of a tie in Oscar history. Hepburn became the second actress and third performer to win an acting Oscar two years in a row (having won for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner the previous year), after Luise Rainer in 1937 (The Great Ziegfeld) and 1938 (The Good Earth), and Spencer Tracy in 1938 (Captains Courageous) and 1939 (Boys Town). She also became the first to win three acting Oscars in lead categories (an achievement later matched by Daniel Day-Lewis and Frances McDormand).

Stanley Kubrick received his only career Oscar this year, for Best Visual Effects as special effects director and designer for 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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