In a season defined by landmark achievements, 96-year-old acting legend June Squibb has officially rewritten the record books. On Tuesday, May 5, 2026, the Broadway community celebrated as Squibb received her first-ever Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her poignant, masterclass performance as the title character in Marjorie Prime. This milestone nomination solidifies her status as the oldest acting nominee in the history of the Tony Awards, surpassing a record previously held by Lois Smith.
For a performer whose career has spanned over six decades, this accolade is not merely a "lifetime achievement" gesture; it is a testament to an artist currently operating at the absolute peak of her powers. While the theater world often obsesses over the "next big thing," Squibb’s nomination serves as a powerful reminder that some of the most profound artistic growth occurs well into one's ninth and tenth decades.
The Morning the Record Books Changed
When the 2026 Tony Award nominations were announced on the morning of Tuesday, May 5, most of Broadway's attention drifted to the headline battle — The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon! sharing a leading 12 nominations each. But the announcement that genuinely stopped the theater world was a single name in the Featured Actress in a Play category.
June Squibb. Age 96.
Squibb earned a 2026 Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Marjorie in Second Stage Theater's revival of Marjorie Prime — and with it, became the oldest Tony Awards acting nominee in the ceremony's entire history. Remarkably, it's also her first-ever Tony nomination, despite a Broadway career stretching back nearly seven decades.
Her response? Characteristically dry and warm. "I'm thrilled with what this nomination will do for my career," Squibb said in a statement — a joke so perfectly timed it could only come from someone who has spent a lifetime performing.
Why This Record Is So Significant
To understand the magnitude of this moment, some context is essential.
The previous record for oldest Tony acting nominee was held by Lois Smith, who was 89 when she was nominated — and won — in 2020 for The Inheritance. Before Smith, Cicely Tyson held the distinction at 88 when she was nominated for The Trip to Bountiful in 2013. Both Smith and Tyson went on to win in their respective categories.
Squibb, at 96, doesn't just edge those records — she shatters them by seven years. It is a record unlikely to be surpassed any time soon.
Tony Awards: Oldest Acting Nominees in History
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The historical pattern is striking: both of Squibb's predecessors won their categories after setting the age record. That precedent — combined with the emotional resonance of the nomination itself — makes her a genuine contender.
Marjorie Prime: A Play Perfectly Suited to Its Moment
The production that earned Squibb her nomination is no ordinary Broadway revival. Marjorie Prime is a revival of Jordan Harrison's 2015 play, in which Squibb plays Marjorie, an elderly woman whose family hires a robotic version of her late husband to jog her failing memory and provide companionship.
Premiering in 2014, the work in 2026 capitalizes on the recent cultural reckoning over AI technologies. Squibb herself has said that she saw the original production, but only now fully comprehends the implications of systems like ChatGPT. That real-world resonance — a 96-year-old actress grappling on stage with the same AI questions the public debates daily — gave the production an undeniable cultural weight.
The Second Stage Theater production was directed by Tony Award nominee Anne Kauffman and featured an all-star cast including two-time Tony winner Cynthia Nixon and Tony winner Danny Burstein. The play was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize.
Marjorie Prime officially opened on Broadway on December 8, 2025, at the Helen Hayes Theater, completing its limited run through February 15, 2026.
There's a remarkable footnote embedded in the play's history: Lois Smith — the actress whose oldest-nominee record Squibb just broke — originated the role of Marjorie in the off-Broadway premiere of Marjorie Prime in 2015, and went on to play the role in the 2017 film adaptation. The role has now passed, symbolically and historically, from one record-holder to the next.
A Career Unlike Any Other: Six Decades on Stage and Screen
June Squibb's biography reads less like a conventional entertainment career arc and more like a testament to what sustained dedication actually looks like.
Born November 6, 1929, Squibb began her career on stage, making her Broadway debut in the musical Gypsy in 1959. Her film debut didn't come until Woody Allen's Alice in 1990. She spent her 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s doing what most actors do — regional theater, road tours, understudy work, cruise ship performances — while Hollywood largely overlooked her.
She uprooted herself from New York to Los Angeles later in life, and the work began flooding in. Small roles in prestige films followed: Scent of a Woman, The Age of Innocence, Meet Joe Black, About Schmidt. But her true breakout didn't arrive until she was 84 years old.
For her role in Alexander Payne's road film Nebraska (2013), she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The performance — acerbic, funny, and full of life — introduced her to a mass audience for the first time.
Rather than coasting on that recognition, she accelerated. Her Oscar-nominated performance in Nebraska opened the door to more than 50 screen credits in the decade that followed. She took her first leading film role at 95 in Thelma, playing a grandmother determined to track down a scammer who had stolen her savings — a film that introduced her to an entirely new generation of viewers.
June Squibb's Career Milestones at a Glance
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The Nomination's Broader Significance
Beyond the personal triumph, Squibb's nomination carries broader meaning for the theater industry — and for how society thinks about aging and artistic contribution.
Her co-star Danny Burstein earned his ninth Tony nomination with Marjorie Prime, making him the most-nominated male actor in Tony Awards history. So in a single production, two records fell — one measuring the ceiling of longevity, the other measuring the depth of sustained excellence.
Squibb said she doesn't really think about her age: "I can't ignore that my body is different than it was when I was young." That matter-of-fact clarity — acknowledging the physical reality while refusing to let it define the work — is precisely the kind of perspective that makes her story resonate beyond theater audiences.
To win the award, Squibb will need to beat fellow nominees Betsy Aidem (Liberation), Marylouise Burke (The Balusters), Aya Cash (Giant), and Laurie Metcalf (Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman). It is a genuinely competitive category. But the historical precedent — Smith and Tyson both won after setting their respective age records — gives her odds that the bookmakers should take seriously.
2026 Tony Award Nominations Announced – ‘The Lost Boys’ & ‘Schmigadoon!’ Lead With 12 Nods https://t.co/ldEpO9eIgC #Broadway #TonyAwards pic.twitter.com/8H5YxgZR7B
— The Randy Report 🇺🇸 🏳️🌈🇺🇦 (@randyslovacek) May 5, 2026
What Happens Next
The 2026 Tony Awards ceremony date has not yet been confirmed at time of publication, but the nominations were announced on May 5, 2026, with the ceremony expected in June, as is traditional.
For Squibb, regardless of the outcome, the nomination itself is a capstone to one of the most quietly extraordinary careers in American performance. She arrived on Broadway when Eisenhower was president, performed alongside Ethel Merman, spent decades in relative obscurity, became an Oscar contender at 84, a film lead at 95, and a Tony nominee at 96.
If the pattern holds — if the voters follow the precedent set by Lois Smith and Cicely Tyson — June Squibb might be adding a Tony Award to a résumé that already includes an Oscar nomination, a Screen Actors Guild nomination, a Golden Globe nomination, and now a place in the history books.
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