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OSCAR'S GOOD-LUCK CHARMS
For acting awards aspirants, appearing with these icons has been a real boon
BURT LANCASTER
Charmed co-stars: 9 Personal wins: 1
JANE FONDA
Charmed co-stars: 8 Personal wins: 2
MARLON BRANDO
Charmed co-stars: 7 Personal wins: 2
Among thesps who have shared the screen with Academy Award-winning performances,Lancaster is the all-time champ, beginning with Shirley Booth’s 1952 best actress win as Lancaster’s wife in “Come Back, Little Sheba.” Fonda co-starred with a raft of fellow Oscar winners, most notably her father Henry, who, about 4½ months before his death, earned his sole non-honorary statuette in the 1981 tearjerker “On Golden Pond.” Katharine Hepburn, who played the family matriarch in the pic, also earned a record fourth actress award. Brando’s seven Oscar-winning co-stars came just 10 films into the brooding thesp’s career.
Twice, two co-stars won awards in the same Lancaster film: supporting thesps Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed of “From Here to Eternity” in 1953 and actor David Niven and supporting actress Wendy Hiller in “Separate Tables” in 1958. Fonda’s good-luck run began in 1965, with Lee Marvin’s actor win for comic Western “Cat Ballou.” At the 1969 awards, Fonda’s “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” co-star Gig Young took home supporting honors. For 1951’s “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Oscar tapped three of his castmates: actress Vivien Leigh, supporting actress Kim Hunter and supporting actor Karl Malden. Brando’s actor loss (to Humphrey Bogart in “The African Queen”) kept the film from being the only one to sweep all four acting categories.
Lancaster, a four-time nominee, won his sole Oscar for his lead perf as the eponymous huckster in 1960’s “Elmer Gantry” — yet even then the wealth was shared, as co-star Shirley Jones, who played his former flame, was the recipient of the supporting actress trophy. Being the sole acting nominee for 1971’s “Klute” was a mere detour on her good-luck run. Fonda’s co-stars in 1977’s “Julia” — Vanessa Redgrave and Jason Robards — won for supporting actress and supporting actor. Twice more, Brando would settle for an actor nom in pics that earned Academy kudos for his co-stars: supporting thesps Red Buttons and Miyoshi Umeki in 1957’s “Sayonara,” and supporting actor Anthony Quinn for 1952’s “Viva Zapata!”
He also shared screen time with actress winner Anna Magnani in 1955’s “The Rose Tattoo,” Maximilian Schell in his actor-honored turn in 1961’s “Judgment at Nuremberg” and with supporting actress champ Helen Hayes in “Airport” (1970). The next year, Fonda and her “Coming Home” leading man Jon Voight won top thesp Oscars for the Vietnam-vet drama — and at the same ceremony, Fonda’s fellow “California Suite” player Maggie Smith received the supporting actress kudo. When Brando scored his first golden guy in 1954 for “On the Waterfront,” co-star Eva Marie Saint took home the supporting actress prize.
By the 1970s, Brando’s luck diminished — his actor win for “The Godfather” wasn’t matched by a supporting actor Oscar, despite noms for James Caan, Robert Duvall and Al Pacino.
 
ROBERT DUVALL
Charmed co-stars: 7 Personal wins: 1
WILLIAM HOLDEN
Charmed co-stars: 6 Personal wins: 1
MERYL STREEP
Charmed co-stars: 6 Personal wins: 2
Thesp’s first Oscar-winning co-star was the actor who toplined Duvall’s debut feature: Gregory Peck in 1962’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Holden, who earned his sole Oscar for 1953’s “Stalag 17,” got his good luck going with “Born Yesterday” co-star Judy Holliday’s 1950 supporting actress win. After three years in film, Streep entered the 1980s with an Oscar of her own and four for her co-stars.
Seven years later, Duvall delivered a supporting turn in “True Grit,” for which John Wayne won his sole acting kudo. Opportunity lost: Holden and three other thesps were nommed for 1951’s “Sunset Blvd.,” but none won. Streep’s debut feature, “Julia,” swept 1977’s supporting categories with its wins for Redgrave and Robards. The next year, Christopher Walken nabbed the supporting actor trophy via pic winner “The Deer Hunter.”
In the early 1970s, Francis Coppola cast Duvall as Corleone family consigliore Tom Hagen in the first two “Godfather” pics, which earned actor Oscars for Brando and Robert De Niro, respectively. However, his leading lady Grace Kelly won for “The Country Girl” in 1954, while Alec Guinness took best actor opposite Holden in 1957’s “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” Streep won the supporting actress Oscar for “Kramer vs. Kramer,” the 1979 pic champ that also earned Dustin Hoffman his first actor statuette.
Three of Duvall’s co-stars in Sidney Lumet’s 1976 TV-biz satire “Network” — Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight — were honored by the Academy in the actor, actress and supporting actress categories, respectively. (Two others, William Holden and Ned Beatty, were nommed.) Nearly 20 years passed before Holden drew another nom or co-starred with another Oscar winner, but then he hit a triple. Half of thesp’s co-star wins came from “Network”: Finch (to whom Holden lost lead actor), Dunaway and Straight. After a 23-year hiatus as a good-luck charm, during which Streep earned an actress kudo for 1982’s “Sophie’s Choice,” the thesp’s mojo returned at the 2002 awards, with wins for two co-stars — Chris Cooper (“Adaptation”) and Nicole Kidman ( “The Hours”).
Duvall finally earned some Oscar glory for himself at the 1983 awards, when he took home the actor trophy for his turn as a country singer in “Tender Mercies.”
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