I don’t know if he was robbed or given the award as a courtesy because his role in Captain Phillips is likely to be his only film.

The 1946 winner didn’t act again until 1980.

I was led to believe he was a cab driver. It turns out he was a limousine driver. While waiting for the computer to look it up I concocted a 40-year, 40-film career plan for him, embracing his cab driving talents.

1. He plays a cab driver in a comic film about a man mistaken for a lookalike criminal. The man and a new girlfriend have to race across town to avoid both the cops and other mobsters. The girl doesn’t know how much danger the man is in and spends the whole trip talking about how much the driver looks like Barkhad Abdi.

2. A bigot boards the cab and says terrible things about several different categories of blacks. When he mentions how Barkhad Abdi didn’t deserve his nomination, he drops him off three blocks early.

3. Five nubile girls board the cab. The black one sits beside him and tries to flirt by every method. Frustrated by his rejection, she finally asks if he’s gay. “No, Somalian.” “what’s a Somalian she asks another after getting out. “He must have had a sex change” she guesses.

4. Two passengers talk about movies, including a long debates about the merits of Captain Phillips. They talk about the supporting cast, saying bad things about Barkhad Abdi. At the end he lectures them at length about how difficult the role was.

5. A man enters the cab, staring at him incessantly. He reacts to Abdi’s accent and guesses his nationality wrongly again and again. Abdi finally tells him Somalian. The man knows a lot about Somalia and they talk about language, history and culture. As the man leaves he tells him most people tell him he looks like the actor from Somalia. The man reveals he’s blind.

6. In a cameo he is told he looks like Barkhad Abdi. He reveals he really is and hasn’t acted since Captain Phillips.

7. In a science-fiction film a teenage bigot from the southern US in the 1930s tinkers with items in his father’s garage and creates a time machine that takes him 200 years into the future. Everything is opposite and white people can’t get a cab, so Abdi refuses. Later he gets covered in soot so Abdi gives him a ride.

8. Cab Wars: Abdi gets second billing in a futuristic film about cabs fighting each other.

9. A few minutes into the film a terrorist hijacks his cab and makes him drive cross-country, leading to a crisis finale.

10. Cab Wars 2: Abdi killed the villain from the original and gets first billing at last in the tense sequel.

11: Herbie gets reincarnated as a cab.

12. Cab Wars 3-Bloodsport

13. Remake of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with a cad reworked.

14: Somali Cab Company: He becomes a tycoon.

15: Cab Wars 4-Cabs in Space.

16: Pilot for tv series Cab Empire: He plays an entrepreneur with a mob connection.

17: Hunger Cabs: Katniss goes nuts in sequel to the long-running series.

18: Sharkcabnado: Cabs and sharks get merged and cause more trouble.

19: Pilot: Taxi Africa: adaptation of the tv series set in Africa.

20: Cab In the Sky: Adaptation of Cabin in the Sky, musical comedy with Amber Riley.

21. Undercover Cabbie: Sequel to Undercover Brother. He has to teach the detective to drive a cab.

22. Sea Cab: Futuristic film about people using cabs at sea.

23. Cab Pirates: He plays the equivalent of Captain Phillips.

24. Decline and Fall of a cab Driver: Adaptation of Death of a Salesman.

25. Herbiestein: Sequel to #11. Herbie’s parts turn a hybrid cab into a monster.

26. Pilot-My mother the Cab: Adaptation of My Mother the Car.

.27. Ride of a Lifetime: He takes his terminally ill teenage daughter cross country.

28. Cabbie for the Mob: Retired and dying, he tells his life story to his children, taking gangsters places. Flashbacks with a younger actor dominate.

29. Confessions of a dying Cabbie: A different cabbie, using extra footage from the preceding film, admits to a variety of bad activities.

30. Last Cab on the Left: Horror film about a psychotic cabbie.

31. The Cab from Hell: As Cab Company manager he must destroy a cab that is demon possessed.

32. Remake of Taxi Driver: All African cast.

33: Documentary: Cab and Culture

34. Documentary: It’s not Fare.

35. Pilot: Cab in the Family: Archie Bunker in reverse.

36. Cabbie for the President: He drives the President around incognito.

37. Cabbie as President. Sequel, the President gets sick and he runs the country for a month, knowing more secrets than most.

38. Memories of the Cabbie President: Years later he tells the funnier stories of the last two.

39: Documentary: Film’s greatest cab Rides.

40: Memoir: How to succeed in Hollywood Without really Trying. He recaps the career above.

Common decency escapes the 1%-ers and then they wonder why they are guillotined by press and public…