Trivia and firsts
Lillian Gish was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1984, aged 90, becoming the oldest recipient of the prize; Mel Brooks was the oldest male recipient, awarded at age 86 in 2013. Tom Hanks was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2002, becoming the youngest recipient of the prize at age 46 and Meryl Streep was the youngest female, awarded at age 54 in 2004.
Of the 49 honorees eleven have been women: Bette Davis (the first female recipient), Lillian Gish, Barbara Stanwyck, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Julie Andrews, and Nicole Kidman.
Composer John Williams was the first recipient of the award to not be an actor or director.
Three sets of family members have received the award: father and son Kirk and Michael Douglas, father and daughter Henry and Jane Fonda, and siblings Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine.
Julie Andrews' award event was originally scheduled for April 25, 2020, with a broadcast on May 7 on TNT, but the event was postponed to 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This marks the first time an AFI Life Achievement Award event was delayed. [3] [4] The event was rescheduled for November 11th, 2021, before it was postponed a second time on October 4, 2021. [5]
Nicole Kidman’s ceremony was originally scheduled for June 10th, 2023, but was postponed due to the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. [6] [7] Kidman is also the first Australian actress to receive the award, and the third non-American actress to be honored after British stars Elizabeth Taylor and Julie Andrews. [8]
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.
Nicole Mary Kidman is an Australian and American actress and producer. Known for her work in film and television productions across many genres, she has consistently ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and six Golden Globe Awards. She became the first Australian actor to receive the AFI Life Achievement Award honor in 2024.
Lillian Diana Gish was an American actress. Her film-acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Gish was called the "First Lady of American Cinema", and is credited with pioneering fundamental film performance techniques. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Gish as the 17th greatest female movie star of Classic Hollywood cinema.
To Die For is a 1995 satirical black comedy film directed by Gus Van Sant, and written by Buck Henry based on Joyce Maynard‘s novel of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the story of Pamela Smart. It stars Nicole Kidman, Joaquin Phoenix and Matt Dillon, with Illeana Douglas, Wayne Knight, Casey Affleck, Kurtwood Smith, Dan Hedaya, and Alison Folland in supporting roles. Kidman was nominated for a BAFTA, and won a Golden Globe Award and a Best Actress Award at the 1st Empire Awards for her performance. Her character has been described as suffering from narcissistic personality disorder in the scientific journal BMC Psychiatry.
The Kennedy Center Honors are annual honors given to those in the performing arts for their lifetime of contributions to American culture. They have been presented annually since 1978, culminating each December in a gala celebrating five honorees in the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, D.C. While the awards are primarily given to individuals, they have occasionally been given to couples or musical groups, as well as to one Broadway musical and one television show.
The Dolby Theatre is a live-performance auditorium in the Ovation Hollywood shopping mall and entertainment complex, on Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. Since its opening on November 9, 2001, it has been the venue of the annual Academy Awards ceremony. It's adjacent to Grauman's Chinese Theatre and across from the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.
Jean Picker Firstenberg is an American who served as the President and CEO of the American Film Institute from 1980 through 2007. She was the Institute's second CEO and the only female to have held that title. At the time of her appointment, she was an executive at the Markle Foundation.
The 12th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony, honoring the best in film and television acting achievement for the year 2005, took place on January 29, 2006, at the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center, in Los Angeles, California. It was the 10th consecutive year the ceremony was held at the center. The nominees were announced on January 5, 2006, and the event was televised live by both TNT and TBS. It was the first ever year TBS televised the ceremony, while it was the 9th consecutive year that TNT had aired it.
The 13th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony, honoring the best in American film and television acting achievement for the year 2006, took place on January 28, 2007, at the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center, in Los Angeles, California. It was the 11th consecutive year the ceremony was held at the center. The nominees were announced on January 4, 2007, and the award ceremony was televised live on TNT and TBS. 2007 was the 10th consecutive year TNT televised the event and the second year for TBS.
The 14th ceremony of the Screen Actors Guild Awards, honoring the best in film and television acting achievement for the year 2007, took place on January 27, 2008 and, for the 12th consecutive time was held at the Shrine Exposition Center in Los Angeles, California. It was broadcast live simultaneously by TNT and TBS.
George Cooper Stevens Jr. is an American writer, playwright, director, and producer. He is the founder of the American Film Institute, creator of the AFI Life Achievement Award, and co-creator of the Kennedy Center Honors. He has also served as Co-Chairman of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.
The Governors Awards presentation is an annual award ceremony hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), at the Grand Ballroom of the Hollywood and Highland Center, in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California. Three awards that signify lifetime achievement within the film industry – the Academy Honorary Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award – are presented at this ceremony. The first Governors Awards ceremony was held on November 14, 2009. Prior to this, these three awards were formally presented during the main Academy Awards ceremony, which now conducts a short mention and appearance of the awards recipients after displaying a montage of the Governors Awards presentation. In the years since, the awards have gained prominence as a major red-carpet destination and industry event.
The American Film Institute Awards are awards presented by the American Film Institute to recognize the top ten films and television programs of the year. Unlike other accolades about the art form, the AFI Awards acknowledge the film and television productions deemed culturally and artistically representative of the year's most significant achievements in the art of the moving image in American cinema.
The 23rd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, honoring the best achievements in film and television performances for the year 2016, were presented on January 29, 2017 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. The ceremony was broadcast on both TNT and TBS 8:00 p.m. EST / 5:00 p.m. PST. The nominees were announced on December 14, 2016.
The 44th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 5 to 15 September 2019. The opening gala was the documentary film Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band, directed by Daniel Roher, and the festival closed with a screening of the biographical film Radioactive, directed by Marjane Satrapi.
The 26th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, honoring the best achievements in film and television performances for the year 2019, were presented on January 19, 2020 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. The ceremony was broadcast live on both TNT and TBS 8:00 p.m. EST / 5:00 p.m. PST. The nominees were announced on December 11, 2019.
In September 2021, AMC Theatres began airing a commercial starring actress Nicole Kidman in its theaters and on television. The ad, written by screenwriter Billy Ray, was intended to spur theater attendance following the COVID-19 pandemic by highlighting the "magic" of the movie theater experience. In the ad, Kidman enters and sits alone in an empty AMC theater while delivering a monologue describing in heightened language the pleasures of the moviegoing experience, such as the "indescribable feeling we get when the lights begin to dim and we go somewhere we've never been before". The commercial became a surprise hit among audiences, who came to appreciate the unintentional campiness of its earnestly rhapsodic style and script, particularly the line "Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this". It has inspired internet memes, parodies, and in-theatre audience participation rituals.
The 29th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, honoring the best achievements in film and television performances for the year 2022, were presented on February 26, 2023 at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Century City, California. The ceremony streamed live on Netflix's YouTube channel, starting at 8:00 p.m. EST / 5:00 p.m. PST. The nominees were announced on January 11, 2023 by Ashley Park and Haley Lu Richardson via Instagram Live.
