Wallace Beery, The Big House

as MACHINE GUN BUTCH

Wallace Beery, The Champ

as CHAMP/ANDY PURCELL

Won: Academy Award - Best Actor

Wallace Beery will forever be in the annals of Oscar history for being "tied" with Fredric March for Best Actor, the first and only tie the category has seen in its 85 year history. The strange thing is Beery isn't the true winner--he actually had one less vote than March, but for some reason 81 years ago the Academy had a rule that stated having 1 less vote than a winner meant that you too were a winner. And with that, Beery got an Oscar, even though he ought to have been a runner-up, which is rather contextually ironic given that he'd won for playing a drunken loser and former champion in a movie called The Champ. With March's excellent turn, you'd think that Beery's performance would be just as great, no?