Many sources list Helen Hunt as the first performer to win an Oscar and Emmy in the same year, for As Good As It Gets and Mad About You (1998). But the first performer to actually accomplish it was Liza Minnelli, who won an Oscar for Best Actress for Cabaret and an Emmy as the star of the Outstanding Variety Program, Liza With a "Z" (1972).

The first performer to be nominated for both awards in the same year was Nancy Kelly, who was nominated for the Oscar for The Bad Seed (losing to Ingrid Bergman in Anastasia) and the Emmy for The Pilot, an episode of the anthology series Studio One Playhouse (losing to Claire Trevor for a dramatization of Dodsworth on Producers' Showcase).