Honorary Academy Awards Announced

Honorary Academy Award recipient Sidney Lumet on set.

     Along with the nominations for the 2005 Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts And Sciences announced the awarding of an honorary Academy Award to director Sidnet Lumet and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Roger Mayer, president of Turner Entertainment Co. These awards are voted on by the Academy’s Board of Governors and will be presented as part of the Academy Awards telecast on February 27.

     “Lumet is one of the most important film directors in the history of American cinema,” stated Academy President Frank Pierson in a press release. “His work has left an indelible mark on both audiences and the history of film itself. It was a great personal pleasure and professional honor to call Sidney to tell him he’d won his profession’s highest honor.”

     Lumet was born into a show business family in Philadelphia in June of 1924. His father was an actor and his mother a dancer. Lumet started in acting, first appearing on stage at New York’s Yiddish Theater at the age of four. As a teenager he appeared on Broadway in the classic Dead End. He continued acting all the way into his 20s. In 1950, he started working at CBS Television, eventually becoming a director on such series as Studio One, Danger, You Are There and Playhouse 90.

     Lumet made his feature film debut with 1957’s 12 Angry Men. The film starred Henry Fonda as a dissenting jury member who butts heads with Lee J. Cobb over the innocence or guilt of a teenager accused of murder. With all but three minutes of the film playing out around a jury room table, Lumet crafted a taut, character-driven drama, which earned him his first Academy Award nomination. The film also featured Jack Warden, E. G. Marshall, Ed Begley and Jack Klugman.

     Out of the 45 films he would direct, Lumet would earn three more directing nominations, for Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976) and The Verdict (1982). He also received a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for 1981’s Prince Of The City, which he co-wrote with Jay Presson Allen. Among his other films are Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962), Fail-Safe (1964), Serpico (1973), Network (1976) and Deathtrap (1982).

    Mayer will be awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his work with several charitable organizations both within and outside the motion picture industry. He has worked with the Motion Picture and Television Fund for over 25 years, serving as the organization’s Board Of Trustees chairman. He is a founding chair of the board of directors for the National Film Preservation Foundation, which was created by Congress in 1996 to help preserve so-called “orphan films”- films whose studio may no longer exist or are not owned by an entity with an economic motive to ensure their preservation. He is also a member of the National Film Preservation Board, which advises the Library of Congress on films to be added to the National Film Registry.

     Mayer has also been active with the Permanent Charities Committee of the Entertainment Industry, now known as Entertainment Industry Foundation, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Silent Film Gala and the United Jewish Welfare Fund. He has also served three three-year terms as a governor of the Academy.

     Additional Academy Awards coverage can be found here.