It’s one of the rarest double honors in showbiz - and literature. Only two people have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar during the past century.

It’s hardly surprising because the two accolades are not exactly synonymous. The Nobel Prize has been awarded annually since the start of the 20th Century - recipients acknowledged for their outstanding contributions in six fields: Chemistry, Physics, Literature, Peace and Physiology or Medicine plus the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, which was introduced as the sixth category in 1969.

A total of 975 people have been awarded a Nobel Prize since the inaugural ceremony in 1901.

The Oscars on the other hand, have been awarded on an annual basis since 1929 “to honor outstanding artistic and scientific achievements in theatrically released feature-length motion pictures”.

Who was the first person to win the Nobel Prize and an Oscar?

The two don’t often overlap. Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw was the first person to win both awards. He was selected or the Nobel prize for Literature in 1925 for his play, Saint Joan which was later adapted for film (twice, in 1957 and 1967), stage and television. The playwright received the award a year later in 1926.

Shaw won the Best Writing (Screenplay) Oscar for Pygmalion 13 years later at the 11th edition of the Academy Awards. The writer didn’t attend the ceremony to receive the award and allegedly was none too thrilled about it - or an offhand quip from presenter Lloyd C. Douglas.

Things change with Dylan

The only other person to have won both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar is Bob Dylan, who, true to form, did it the other way around. Dylan picked up the Oscar for Best Original Song for his single Things Have Changed which was written for Curtis Hanson’s movie Wonder Boys, and is one of four of Bob’s song’s included on the soundtrack.

In 2016 the singer-songwriter received the Nobel Prize in Literature, “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. Dylan didn’t attend the gala in Stockholm due to other commitments but received his gold medal and diploma a few months later during a break in his schedule.

During his Nobel lecture in June 2017, Dylan said: “Our songs are alive in the land of the living. But songs are unlike literature. They’re meant to be sung, not read. The words in Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be acted on the stage. Just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page. And I hope some of you get the chance to listen to these lyrics the way they were intended to be heard: in concert or on record or however people are listening to songs these days. I return once again to Homer, who says, ‘Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story’"

Many musicians have won Oscars, including: Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Annie Lennox, Adele, Lady Gaga, The Beatles... and a handful of writers who also had careers in music, such as Toni Morrison and Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize - but only Dylan won both.

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