The Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year award is bestowed annually by the Hasty Pudding Theatricals society at Harvard University. The award was created in 1951, and its first recipient was Gertrude Lawrence, an English actress, singer, and dancer. It has since been awarded annually by the society members of the Hasty Pudding to performers deemed to have made a "lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment".
The Woman of the Year recipient is traditionally treated to a day of celebrations in her honor, including a parade through Harvard Square accompanied by members of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals and Pudding-affiliated Organizations. This is usually followed by a celebratory dinner and entertainment by the Harvard Krokodiloes.
Below is a list of the women who have received the award: [1]
Meg Ryan is an American actress. She made her acting debut in 1981 in the drama film Rich and Famous. She joined the cast of the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in 1982. In the 1980s, Ryan appeared in Top Gun, Promised Land, (1987) and the Rob Reiner-directed romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally... (1989), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination.
Piper Laurie was an American actress. She is known for her roles in the films The Hustler (1961), Carrie (1976), and Children of a Lesser God (1986), and the miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983). She is also known for her performances as Kirsten Arnesen in the original TV production of "Days of Wine and Roses", and as Catherine Martell in the television series Twin Peaks.
Elizabeth Helen Blackburn, is an Australian-American Nobel laureate who is the former president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. In 1984, Blackburn co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the telomere, with Carol W. Greider. For this work, she was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, sharing it with Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak, becoming the first Australian woman Nobel laureate.
The Hasty Pudding Club, often referred to simply as the Pudding, is a social club at Harvard University, and one of three sub-organizations that comprise the Hasty Pudding - Institute of 1770. The club's motto, Concordia Discors, derives from the epistles of the Latin poet Horace.
Hasty Pudding Theatricals, known informally as The Pudding, is a student theatrical society at Harvard University known for its annual burlesque crossdressing musicals as well as its Man and Woman of the Year awards. The Pudding is the oldest theatrical organization in the United States and the third oldest in the world, behind the Comédie-Française and the Oberammergau Passion Play. Hasty Pudding Theatricals was described by John Wheelwright in 1897 as a "kindly association of men of all ages in a gay evening of simple enjoyment." Its annual production is a musical comedy that often touches on topical social and political issues.
The Hasty Pudding Man of the Year award is bestowed annually by the Hasty Pudding Theatricals society at Harvard University. It has been awarded since 1967 to performers deemed by the society members to have made a "lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment."
Harvard College has several types of social clubs. These are split between gender-inclusive clubs recognized by the college, and unrecognized single-gender clubs which were subject to College sanctions in the past. The Hasty Pudding Club holds claim as the oldest collegiate social club in America, tracing its roots back to 1770. The next oldest institutions, dating to 1791, are the traditionally all-male final clubs. Fraternities were prominent in the late 19th century as well, until their initial expulsions and then eventual resurrection off Harvard's campus in the 1990s. From 1991 onwards, all-female final clubs as well as sororities began to appear. Between 1984 and 2018, no social organizations were recognized by the school due to the clubs' refusal to become gender-inclusive.
Carol Lawrence is an American actress, appearing in musical theatre and on television. She is known for creating the role of Maria on Broadway in the musical West Side Story (1957), receiving a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She appeared at The Muny, St. Louis, in several musicals, including Funny Girl. She also appeared in many television dramas, including Rawhide, The Six Million Dollar Man and Murder She Wrote. She was married to fellow performer Robert Goulet.
Barbara Bel Geddes was an American stage and screen actress, artist, and children's author whose career spanned almost five decades. She was best known for her starring role as Miss Ellie Ewing in the television series Dallas. Bel Geddes also starred as Maggie in the original Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. Her notable films included I Remember Mama (1948) and Vertigo (1958). Throughout her career, she was the recipient of several acting awards and nominations.
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WP Theater is a not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater based in New York City. It is the nation’s oldest and largest theater company dedicated to developing, producing and promoting the work of Women+ theater artists of all kinds at every stage in their careers. Currently, Lisa McNulty serves as the Producing Artistic Director and Michael Sag serves as the Managing Director.
Women's Image Network (WIN) is a charity that produces The Women's Image Awards, "Advancing a gender-balanced world and increasing the value of women and girls by celebrating outstanding film and television." The awards show is produced during the Hollywood awards season to promote deserving media and drive attention to feature films also contending for Golden Globe and Academy Awards.
The Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards—first presented in 1977 by the now–Los Angeles chapter of the Women in Film organization—were presented to honor women in communications and media. The awards include the Crystal Award, the Lucy Award, the Dorothy Arzner Directors Award, the MaxMara Face of the Future Award, and the Kodak Vision Award.
Mary Tyler Moore was an American actress, known for her roles in the television sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–77), in which she starred as Mary Richards, a thirtyish single woman who worked as a local news producer in Minneapolis, and The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–66), in which she played Laura Petrie, a former dancer turned Westchester homemaker, wife and mother. Her notable film work includes 1967's Thoroughly Modern Millie and 1980's Ordinary People, in which she played a role that was very different from the television characters she had portrayed, and for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Matthew Bohrer is an American actor and writer best known for roles in the television shows Lucifer, Goliath, and Masters of Sex.