16 Oscar Winners Who Starred on Soap Operas

If Michael B. Jordan wins the Oscar for Best Actor at the 2026 Academy Awards, he’ll be joining an exclusive club that’s gone overlooked by film lovers who pay little attention to broadcast staples. He’ll become a soap star who’s gone on to win an Oscar.

The genre, which is often looked down upon despite being the medium of some of the most talented TV stars in the business, is credited as being a training ground for the industry. Soap operas are notorious for their long hours of filming and the amount of material that must be shot and performed to meet the goal of putting on a show every weekday.

This rigorous television format has churned out quite a few household names. It’s also been the home of Hollywood movie stars looking to TV for their next big role. Curious to see which Oscar-winning actors were a part of the soap world? You may be surprised by who made this list!

1. Anne Baxter
2. Celeste Holm
3. Jane Wyman
4. Kim Hunter
5. Donna Reed
6. Dorothy Malone
7. Elizabeth Taylor
8. Beatrice Straight
9. George Kennedy
10. Christopher Walken
11. Marisa Tomei
12. Kevin Kline
13. Tommy Lee Jones
14. Melissa Leo
15. Julianne Moore
16. Allison Janney

Anne Baxter

In 1947, Anne Baxter won Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Sophie MacDonald in The Razor’s Edge. The film, centered on a World War I vet searching for his purpose in life, saw Baxter step into the role of a woman whose life was marked by tragedy. She had to play an alcoholic haunted by the death of her husband and baby. Though Sophie wanted a better life, she ultimately succumbed to addiction and died in the movie. Baxter was praised for the nuance of her portrayal.

By the ‘80s, the actress had turned her attention to television. She starred as Victoria Cabot on ABC’s Hotel. The soap opera was set in the St. Gregory Hotel in San Francisco, where the posh Victoria ran the establishment with the help of Peter McDermott, the general manager. The series was known for its rotating cast of guests. 

Hotel briefly reunited Baxter with Bette Davis, who played Victoria’s sister-in-law, Laura Trent, in the pilot. The co-stars were rivals in the 1951 Best Picture Winner, All About Eve, and were nominated for Best Actress. The soap opera ran from 1983 to 1987. Baxter was written out of the series upon her death in 1985. Victoria left half of the St. Gregory to Peter in her will.

Celeste Holm

Before her turn on ABC’s Loving as Isabella Alden, Celeste Holm was an accomplished Broadway and film star. She won Best Supporting Actress in 1948 for playing Anne Dettrey in A Gentleman’s Agreement.

The movie, which follows a journalist who pretends to be Jewish to expose antisemitism in New York City and in affluent communities in Connecticut, saw her portray Smith’s weekly fashion editor Anne Dettrey. Holm’s character is charming, friendly, and very clear about her views as a woman who opposes antisemitism and the mistreatment of others simply because of their differences.

As her career progressed, Holm spent more time on TV than in film or on stage. She made her soap debut in 1981 as Lauren Roberts on CBS’s As the World Turns. Then, in 1985, Holm was cast as Anna Rossini in Falcon Crest for a six-episode arc. She played the widowed mother of Cassandra Wilder and Damon Ross, who was institutionalized after setting fire to the Falcon Crest mansion in an attempt to kill Angela Channing. Anna believed Angela was the reason her husband committed suicide.

Holm made her first appearance on Loving in 1986 as Lydia Woodhouse. She received a Daytime Emmy nomination for her guest role. The actress would later return to step into the shoes of Isabelle Aldean in 1991, becoming the third actress to portray the wealthy family’s matriarch. She left the soap in 1992.

Jane Wyman

Fans of Falcon Crest know Jane Wyman as the scheming winemaker Angela Channing, but before she was the soap’s matriarch to a scandalous family, she was an in-demand film talent. 

Wyman won a Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1949 due to her portrayal of Belinda MacDonald in Johnny Belinda. She played a deaf-mute girl whose rape results in a pregnancy. When Belinda befriends a doctor, her life improves. 

It would be nearly 40 years before Wyman would win a Golden Globe again, this time for Falcon Crest in 1984. The actress starred as Angela for the primetime soap opera’s entire run, from 1981 to 1990.

Kim Hunter

One of the most iconic lines in the history of cinema is Marlon Brando’s yell of “Stella” in A Streetcar Named Desire, and it’s Kim Hunter who played Stella Kowalski. She won Best Supporting Actress in 1952 for her performance as Stanley’s pregnant wife and Blanche Dubois’ sister, who is caught in the middle of her husband’s violent spiral that results in Blanche’s rape and mental breakdown ahead of the baby’s birth.

Though Hunter continued to star in movies throughout her career, she developed a name for herself in the realm of television through guest appearances. She landed a longer arc in 1979 as Nola Madison on ABC’s The Edge of Night. Hunter played an actress with a drinking problem whose career was in its twilight years. She was initially supposed to be on the soap for only a few months, but her role was extended when the writers came up with the idea of casting Nola in a film.

When speaking about her time on The Edge of Night, Hunter told the Television Academy that “it was exhausting. It really was. And I know bloody well that I’d never want to do it again, but I’m not sorry that I did do it because it was a very, very interesting experience.” The actress was referring to the fast pace of soap operas, which saw her taping five episodes in one week. Hunter was nominated for a Daytime Emmy in 1980 for her work on the series.

Donna Reed

Dallas was the last credit Oscar winner Donna Reed would add to her filmography. She won Best Supporting Actress in 1954 for her role as Alma “Lorene” Burke in From Here to Eternity. The film, which won Best Picture and was famous for its steamy beach-kiss scene, starred Reed as a social club worker who loses her love on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked.

Aside from her own sitcom, The Donna Reed Show, and a few guest appearances on various TV series, Reed was mostly known for her work in film. But she did enter the world of soaps to play Miss Ellie Ewing Farlow when the character’s originator, Barbara Bel Geddes, was temporarily replaced due to health issues.

Reed portrayed Ellie—the Ewing matriarch who loved fiercely, cared deeply for her family’s ranch, and believed in the strength that can be found in the family unit—from 1984 to 1985 until Geddes returned.

Dorothy Malone

The 1957 winner of Best Supporting Actress, Dorothy Malone, is best known for playing Constance MacKenzie in the ABC soap opera Peyton Place, which premiered in 1964. This was just seven years after Malone gave her award-winning performance in Written on the Wind.

In the movie, Malone plays Marylee Hadley, the self-destructive daughter of an oil baron. The film is a melodrama that saw her character accusing the lead, Mitch Wayne, of murder in a fit of jealousy and grief over the death of her brother. It had the kind of plot that wouldn’t be out of place in a soap opera.

Peyton Place saw Malone step into the role of a single mother determined to protect her daughter, even if it meant being overbearing. She was twice nominated for a Golden Globe and served as the series' lead until 1968. Malone was written out for complaining that Constance was being slighted in storylines. In response, the actress sued the show’s production company, 20th Century Fox, for $1.6 million. The case was settled.

Malone later reprised her role of Constance in 1977 for the made-for-TV movie, Murder in Peyton Place, and again in 1985 for the telefilm Peyton Place: The Next Generation.

Elizabeth Taylor

Screen legend Elizabeth Taylor is a two-time Oscar winner whose soap legacy is brief but memorable. She took home the Academy’s top acting honor in 1961 for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1967.

By the early ‘80s, after her film career wound down, Taylor turned her attention to television, where she made guest appearances and starred in TV movies. Her most significant role, besides the 1985 miniseries North and South, was on ABC’s General Hospital in 1981. The actress originated the character Helena Cassadine, a villainess who cursed Luke and Laura on the day of the wedding.

Taylor was a big fan of General Hospital and was happy to be a part of the soap opera. The late Anthony Geary (who played Luke) once described how the star felt about the daytime drama, stating, “Luke and Laura's love story made Elizabeth feel very nostalgic. She said it reminded her of her youth and the great romance films of the old studio system.”

Though Taylor was only in a three-episode arc, she left a lasting impression on the series. The only other time she’d appear in a soap opera was in a 1984 episode of Hotel.

Beatrice Straight

Life imitated art with Beatrice Straight’s soap legacy. She won Best Supporting Actress in 1977 for her portrayal of Louise Schumacher in the satirical dramedy Network, about a struggling TV program. Straight went on to star in the short-lived primetime soap opera King’s Crossing in 1982, which only lasted seven episodes before it was pulled from ABC’s line-up. She played Louisa Beauchamp, Nan's distant aunt, who lives on a sinister ranch in an equally sinister house described as looking like the Bates mansion in Psycho.

George Kennedy

One of the few Oscar-winning men to play a significant role in a soap opera was George Kennedy. The World War II vet began acting after he served 16 years in the Army. Kennedy was prolific, starring in over 200 films throughout his career. He won Best Supporting Actor in 1968 for his performance as Clarence "Dragline" Slidell, the chain gang leader who goes from Luke’s nemesis to his friend, in the prison drama Cool Hand Luke.

Kennedy’s most prominent television role was on Dallas as Carter McKay, a rancher and business rival of J.R. Ewing, who arrived in the show's last three seasons. He was on the daytime drama from 1988 to its final season in 1991. He reprised his role for the TV movies Dallas: J.R. Returns (1996) and Dallas: War of the Ewings (1998).

The actor’s last TV role, though not his final acting credit, was on the CBS soap Young and the Restless. He played Albert Miller, Victor Newman’s father, who’d abandoned his family when Victor was a child. Kennedy joined the daytime drama for a brief guest arc in 2003 and later returned in 2010 for Victor’s A Christmas Carol-like episode, where Albert appears as a ghost.

Christopher Walken

Known for his unique voice as much as his memorable roles, Christopher Walken got his start in Hollywood as a child. One of his first roles was Mike Bauer, the sensitive son of Bill and Bert Bauer, who’d grow up to become a respected attorney in his community on The Young and the Restless.

Walken shared the credit with his brother Glenn. They originated the role in 1954 and remained on the show until 1956. 23 years later, Walken won Best Supporting Actor for The Deer Hunter in 1979. He played Corporal Nikanor “Nick” Chevotarevich, an enlisted service member whose life derails due to PTSD from his experiences in the Vietnam War and ends tragically from suicide.

Marisa Tomei

As the World Turns was Marisa Tomei’s first acting credit. She was a college student when she landed the role of Marcy Thompson, a teenager taken in by the McColl family who’d fall for their son Kirk before eventually marrying a prince. Tomei was on the soap from 1983 to 1985.

​10 years after her first role, she won Best Supporting Actress in 1993 for her portrayal of Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny. Tomei played the titular character’s fiancée, who helps him win the case against his cousin. The scene in which Lisa explains why Bill Gambini and Stan Rothenstein couldn’t have been the murderers, using her knowledge of cars, is one of the most iconic in film history.

Kevin Kline

Similar to a few actors on this list, Kevin Kline’s career began on a soap opera. His first acting credit was Woody Reed on the CBS series Search for Tomorrow. He joined the program in 1976, playing a “cad,” as PBS put it, until 1977.

Kline wouldn’t enter the film scene until 1982 with Sophie’s Choice. Seven years later, in 1989,  he won Best Supporting Actor for his turn as Otto West in A Fish Called Wanda. The heist comedy followed diamond thieves as they searched for their leader’s hidden treasure. Otto was a philosophy student who was dreadful at robbery.

Tommy Lee Jones

Before Tommy Lee Jones won Best Supporting Actor in 1994 for his performance as U.S. Deputy Marshal Sam Gerard in The Fugitive, he starred on ABC’s One Life to Live. Dr. Mark Toland was his first TV credit, and he recurred as the character from 1971 to 1975. The good doctor was notably suave and loving before a character switch that saw him completely flip. The move came right after Jones had given notice that he’d be leaving the soap.

In 1994, the actor told Entertainment Weekly that his character became an “A-one nut boy” and that over a weekend, he went from upstanding to Dr. Hyde. Jones said, “They had me kill my parents! About the nicest thing I did was take drugs.”

​For The Fugitive, Jones was on the right side of the law, playing the no-nonsense U.S. Marshal who comes to see that Dr. Richard Kimble has been framed for the murder of his wife. The role is part of a line of law enforcement portrayals for which Jones is known.

Melissa Leo

For Melissa Leo, playing Linda Warner on All My Children from 1984 to 1988 was like graduate school. The ABC soap opera was her first credit. She told Zap2it in 2011 that she’d never turned her nose up to the genre. Leo said:

“I went into it knowing I would get a chance to act — maybe not every day, but a few times a week — and (there was) the learning a whole new thing every day, and being able to dance with television without knowing what was coming down the pike for your character. Then, you got to see what you’d done. If you didn’t sit just around being critical of yourself, but you learned…”

​In her time playing Cliff Warner’s scheming little sister, Leo honed her skills as an actress. She was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1985 for her performance. But her first prestigious win would be in 2011 for The Fighter, a boxing biopic about brothers Micky Ward and Dick Eklund. Leo played their mother, Alice Eklund-Ward, who was Mickey’s manager. She won Best Supporting Actress at the 83rd Academy Award ceremony.

Julianne Moore

The soap world is where Julianne Moore got her start. Her first credit was for The Edge of Night in 1984. She played Carmen Engler in a handful of episodes. Then, in 1985, she became a series regular on As the World Turns, playing Frannie Hughes.

Later, Moore would pull double duty, stepping into the role of Sabrina, Frannie’s sister who’d been born to a different mother and who the family had thought died. The actress remained on the series until 1988, but returned in 2010 to bid the soap farewell as it came to an end.

​Five years after her final turn as Frannie, Moore won Best Actress for Still Alice in 2015. She starred as the titular character, Dr. Howland, a linguistics professor who’s diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s.

Allison Janney

While her most iconic role is C.J. Cregg on The West Wing, one of Allison Janney’s first acting credits was as the housemaid Ginger on Guiding Light. She appeared on the soap on and off from 1993 to 1995. Her part was notably comedic with a terrible Brooklyn accent.

Janney is best known for her work on television, but she won Best Supporting Actress in 2018 for the ice skating biopic I, Tonya. She played Tonya Harding’s abusive mother, LaVona Golden.