Heath Ledger will not be the youngest man nominated for a Best Actor oscar

I was just doing some fact-checking, since I think some fuss has been made over the fact that Ledger will be the youngest Best Actor nominee ever this year (though maybe no one is saying that... I know there's fuss over his possibly being the youngest winner, but I thought people were talking "youngest nominee" also).

Anyway, technically, I believe he will become the youngest living best actor nominee ever, besting Marlon Brando, who received his first nod at the age of 27 (Ledger is still 26). The youngest nominee ever, though, would be none other than James Dean, who received a posthumous Best Actor nomination when he would've been just 25 (for East of Eden), followed by another posthumous nod when he would've been 26 (for Giant). Sentiment ultimately did not win him an actual post-humous statue (he lost to Ernest Borgnine for Marty and Yul Brynner for The King and I); this would've made him the youngest winner by far. At the time, the youngest winner was Marlon Brando, who had just won for On the Waterfront on his fourth consecutive nomination at age 30 in 1955, the same year James Dean died (and one year before Dean earned his first academy nod... and also, coincidentally, the same year the clock tower was struck in the Back to the Future trilogy... clearly a year of great cosmic significance in the space-time continuum). Brando was dethroned, however, as the youngest Best Actor winner, by Adrien Brody in 2003, when he won for The Pianist at the age of 29.

Phew!

Anyway, Ledger will only really set a record (unless you consider youngest living nominee to be a record, and I guess it is) if he somehow manages to beat P. S. Hoffman to the oscar this year. If he did that, he'd blow Brody's record out of the water and become the youngest Best Actor winner EVER, at the age of 26.

But even if he doesn't, Ledger is still in mighty good company... being sandwiched between 25-year-old James Dean and 27-year-old Marlon Brando is quite a desirable situation.

Actually... yeah... wow... I totally woudn't mind being the meat in that sandwich ; ) Mmmm...