Two users wrote us last week with the same Al Gore question on their minds:
(1) “For your article on George Bernard Shaw, you might want to update this sentence: ‘Shaw won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature. He remains the only person to win both an Oscar and a Nobel Prize.’ As you know, as of 2007 Al Gore has won now both prizes as well.”
(2) “You list George Bernard Shaw as the only person to win an Oscar and a Nobel Prize. Has Al Gore not now matched this feat?”
The answer is: nope! Former vice-president Al Gore has not joined cranky playwright George Bernard Shaw in the Nobel + Oscar double-dip.
Al Gore did win the Nobel Prize this year. And the documentary about Gore and climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, did win an Academy Award. But the Oscar for that film went to director Davis Guggenheim, not to Gore. Gore was the subject of the film, but he was not the maker of the film — so no Oscar. (Gore joined Guggenheim onstage as he accepted the award, which undoubtedly added to the confusion.)
George Bernard Shaw won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature, and also won a 1938 Oscar for his screenplay for Pygmalion. (Side note: Pygmalion was also later made into the musical My Fair Lady.)
So Shaw’s record is safe for now — at least until Russell Crowe finally gets busy and brokers peace in the Middle East.