Golden Moments: Classic Hollywood Stars With Their Oscars

Peter Stackpole—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Vivien Leigh places the Oscar she won for her role as Scarlett in Gone With The Wind on her mantlepiece at home, 1940.

Actors1937-1961

We’ve all heard the sentiment, or some version of it, uttered during the Oscars: It’s an honor just to be nominated. And who knows — in some cases, it might even be true. But in the end, when it comes to the acting honors, there’s only one person up there on the stage, hugging (or, if it’s a guy, holding high) that inimitable golden statuette. In those prestigious individual categories that step into the spotlight near the end of the night — director, for example, and the supporting and lead actors and actresses — there’s only one winner.

Here, LIFE.com celebrates Hollywood legends — and a few stars who, while huge in their time, have dimmed with the passing years — as they bask in the limelight, marvel at their good fortune, sit as if dazed by the honor bestowed on them and, in a few instances, go about their lives as if nothing had happened (albeit with an Oscar statuette somehow just within reach). Here are Taylor, Crosby, Hepburn, Brando, Joan Crawford, Grace Kelly, Jimmy Stewart and other actors and actresses who have won at least one Oscar — many of these folks, of course, won more than one — spending some quality time with that most coveted of moviedom’s trophies.

Rex Hardy Jr.—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Luise Rainer, the first woman to win two Oscars, holds her Best Actress award for her performance in The Great Ziegfeld during the 1937 Academy Awards ceremony

 

 

Bob Landry—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Joan Fontaine doing the household bookkeeping next to the Oscar she won for her role in Hitchcok's Suspicion, 1942

 

 

Allan Grant—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Elizabeth Taylor at a Hollywood party with the Oscar she won for her role in BUtterfield 8, 1961

George Silk—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Grace Kelly with the Oscar she won for her role in The Country Girl, 1955. William Holden, her co-star in the movie, stands behind her

 

 

Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Audrey Hepburn with the Oscar she won for Roman Holiday, 1954

Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Joanne Woodward smiles radiantly while holding her Best Actress Oscar for her role in Three Faces of Eve, 1958

George Silk—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Best Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress winners Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed (both for From Here to Eternity) and their Oscars, 1954

 

 

Walter Sanders—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Bing Crosby (Going My Way), Ingrid Bergman (Gaslight) and Barry Fitzgerald (Going My Way) with their Oscars, 1945

 

 

Loomis Dean—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Gloria Grahame with her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Bad and the Beautiful, 1953

George Silk—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Marlon Brando (right) with his Oscar for On the Waterfront, 1955.

Ed Clark—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Onstage presenters seen from the wings during the 1950 Academy Awards

Peter Stackpole—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Jimmy Stewart, back from WWII, talks with the oldest employee of his family's hardware store in Pennsylvania, George Little; nearby is a table of various mementos, including Stewart's Best Actor Oscar for The Philadelphia Story.

Martha Holmes—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Joan Crawford with her Best Actress Oscar for Mildred Pierce, 1946