Today's question: name the actress who has appeared in a Best Picture winner in three different decades.
Pictured: You Can't Take It With You, the Best Picture winner in 1938, one of five Best Picture winners in which actress Bess Flowers appeared (the record for an actress). She is not the answer to today's question, though, because the five films were released in two decades (the 1930's and the 1950's).
My guess (and it's just that) is Katharine Hepburn. She was in On Golden Pond, which won in the early 80s, and I suspect she must have starred in at least two other Best Picture winners from different decades during her long career.
Katharine Hepburn had an acting career that certainly spanned several decades, but she did not star in three Best Picture winners. In fact, I can't think of a film in which she starred that was a Best Picture winner. ON GOLDEN POND was a Best Picture nominee, but in a major upset it lost the award to CHARIOTS OF FIRE (making OGP one of only four films to capture the top two acting awards but lose the Best Picture prize — as noted in my "Day 32" post last week).
Meryl Streep
(Kramer v. Kramer, Out of Africa, and The Hours)
Meryl Streep? No, sorry.
Streep has appeared in three Best Picture winners, but not in three different decades. Her first was THE DEER HUNTER (1978), followed by KRAMER VS. KRAMER (1979), and OUT OF AFRICA (1985). She did appear in THE HOURS, a Best Picture nominee. But CHICAGO won the coveted prize for films released in 2002.
Shirley Maclaine
Correct. The films? AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (1950's), THE APARTMENT (1960's), and TERMS OF ENDEARMENT (1980's).