At the 46th Academy Awards on April 2, 1974, Tatum O'Neal won Best Supporting Actress for Paper Moon at the age of 10, becoming the youngest person ever to win a competitive Oscar, a record she still held as of 2026. In Peter Bogdanovich's comedy set in the Depression era Midwest, she played Addie Loggins, an orphaned girl who teams up with a traveling Bible salesman and small time con man, Moses Pray, played by her real father, Ryan O'Neal. Together the pair scam recently widowed women into buying Bibles.

Her placement in the supporting category confused some observers, including Bogdanovich, who pointed out that she was on screen for 100 of the film's 103 minutes. She won over her co-star Madeline Kahn, Candy Clark of American Graffiti, Sylvia Sidney of Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams and Linda Blair, the 15 year old star of The Exorcist, whose chances may have been hurt by the revelation that her demonic voice…