From Garbo to Scorsese, Oscar snubs some of the best

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Greta Garbo will live forever on screen, her glamour and mystery intact. The dashing Cary Grant also has the kind of immortality only available to film's legendary actors.

But as far as Oscar is concerned, neither of them ever existed.

Garbo and Grant are among the legends overlooked by the Academy Awards: Marlene Dietrich never won. Ginger Rogers took home a trophy, but Fred Astaire did not. Barbara Stanwyck's memorable turn in "Double Indemnity" did not win a golden statuette.

"One problem is, if you are consistently good, people tend to take you for granted," said Damien Bona, author of "Inside Oscar."

CNN's Sherri Sylvester reports from Los Angeles 2 minute, 20 second VXtreme video

Robert Osborne, Turner Classic Movies host, agrees: "Cary Grant... was never bad. Stanwyck was always wonderful. Greta Garbo was always wonderful."

Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole had 14 nominations between them but neither took home an Oscar.

"There was always somebody that year who was a little more fashionable than Richard Burton or Peter O'Toole," Bona said.

Two noted directors also are among the forgotten.

Martin Scorsese has yet to hear his name called, and Alfred Hitchcock never got an Oscar for a film, although he did receive a special award at the end of his life.

"He stood at the microphone and said, 'Thank you.' I think it was just sort of, 'I should have had this, and that's all you're going to get, folks,'" said Tippi Hedren, who starred in Hitchcock's 1963 film "The Birds."

Perhaps director James Cameron, who is in the race this year for his blockbuster "Titanic," sums up the Oscar experience best: "You have to go into these things with your eyes open and know that it is a crap shoot."

Correspondent Sherri Sylvester contributed to this report.

Related sites:

• The Official Academy Awards Web Site
• The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
• The Internet Movie Database