Edmund Gwenn won Best Supporting Actor for Miracle on 34th Street, playing Kris Kringle, and remains the only performer to win an Academy Award for playing Santa Claus.
He had a substantial British stage and film career beforehand, working with Hitchcock several times including The Trouble with Harry and Foreign Correspondent.
Them! gave him a late science fiction role as the entomologist, and he reportedly said on his deathbed that dying is easy and comedy is hard, which may be apocryphal and is too good to check.
