Who is the oldest actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actor?

Henry Fonda is the oldest actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actor. He won it at the 54th Academy Awards for the movie On Golden Pond, his final film role. On Golden Pond in 1981, the film adaptation of Ernest Thompson's play, marked a final professional and personal triumph for Henry Fonda at the age of 76.

Directed by Mark Rydell, the film provided unprecedented collaborations between Fonda and Katharine Hepburn, along with Fonda and his daughter, Jane. The elder Fonda played an emotionally brittle and distant father who becomes more accessible at the end of his life. Jane Fonda has said that elements of the story mimicked their real-life relationship, and helped them resolve certain issues. She bought the film rights in the hope that her father would play the role, and later described it as "a gift to my father that was so unbelievably successful."

Henry Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was a celebrated American film and stage actor with a career spanning more than five decades. He died in California from a heart disease at 77 years old.