Sean Connery will be the 34th recipient of the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award in honor of his contributions to film.
Besides playing James Bond in a number of generally tacky action-adventure productions, Connery also appeared in numerous other films with varying degrees of success. He won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his uninspired turn in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables in 1987.
Previous AFI Lifetime Achievement Award recipients include Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, David Lean, Gregory Peck, John Huston, and Frank Capra. Only six women have thus far been awarded the AFI's top prize: Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, Barbara Stanwyck, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, and Meryl Streep. In recent years, the AFI has focused on performers and directors that are still in evidence (Streisand, Streep, George Lucas, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, Harrison Ford, and now Connery), apparently in an attempt to bolster TV viewership ratings. Currently less popular – but equally, if not more, deserving – veterans from the 1930s-1960s (Olivia de Havilland, Joan Fontaine, Arthur Penn, Sidney Lumet, Julie Christie) will most likely remain unrecognized by the AFI.