Winning an Oscar is the apex of many Hollywood stars' careers. For decades now, the prize has celebrated outstanding actor performances along with the numerous people involved behind-the-scenes of some of the greatest cinematic works.
Many stars, however, did not have the chance to reap the rewards of their hard work because they sadly passed before it was their turn. They didn't get to receive their nominations and awards while still alive, and some didn't even get to see their finished films.
But the Academy Awards did not forget them, indeed rewarding some late stars with posthumous Oscars or nominations as tribute to their legacy. Click through this gallery to see which stars were nominated for or even won an Oscar after they died.
The actress and former Ziegfeld Girl was famous both on screen and stage. She died suddenly in 1929, at the age of 39, which doctors variously attributed to alcohol, sleeping pills, and heroin.
In 1930, at the second-ever Academy Awards ceremony, she was nominated posthumously for Best Actress for her 1929 role in 'The Letter,' though she didn't win.
Sir Ralph Richardson was a prolific English actor with over 60 cinema roles who, alongside John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, was one of the trinity of male actors who dominated the British stage for a large part of the 20th century. He was said to have died peacefully in 1983 at the age of 80.
A year after his death, 'Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes' was released, in which Richardson plays the 6th Earl of Greystoke. He was nominated the next year for Best Supporting Actor, though he didn't win.
In 2008, the world was shocked by the news of the Australian actor's premature death. He was just 28 years old when he died of an accidental drug overdose.
At the 2009 Academy Awards, he won Best Supporting Actor for his role as the Joker, and he became only the second actor to ever win a posthumous Oscar.
The Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, often referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America," was best known for a series of 10 plays called 'The Pittsburgh Cycle,' which chronicle the 20th-century experiences of the African-American community. Those 10 plays included 'Fences' and 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,' which were both later adapted for the screen. He died in 2005 of liver cancer.
Wilson himself penned the adapted screenplay for 'Fences' (2016), which Denzel Washington produced years after his death. It earned Wilson a posthumous Oscar nod for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The actor died suddenly on August 28, 2020, after silently struggling with colon cancer for four years. His final film, ‘Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,’ co-starring Viola Davis, was released two months after his death.
At the 2021 Oscars, Boseman is nominated for his role in the Denzel Washington-produced film, making him the eighth actor to ever be nominated posthumously for an Academy Award.
His role, which some are calling the greatest of his life, already earned him posthumous awards including the NAACP Image Award, the Critics Choice Award, and the Golden Globe for Best Actor.
See also: These Oscar firsts mark the rise of the marginalized
Posthumous Oscars: The stars who earned nods and awards after death
Find out which stars were nominated or even won Oscars after they passed
CELEBRITY Academy awards
Winning an Oscar is the apex of many Hollywood stars' careers. For decades now, the prize has celebrated outstanding actor performances along with the numerous people involved behind-the-scenes of some of the greatest cinematic works.
Many stars, however, did not have the chance to reap the rewards of their hard work because they sadly passed before it was their turn. They didn't get to receive their nominations and awards while still alive, and some didn't even get to see their finished films.
But the Academy Awards did not forget them, indeed rewarding some late stars with posthumous Oscars or nominations as tribute to their legacy. Click through this gallery to see which stars were nominated for or even won an Oscar after they died.