Honorary Oscars Bypass Women
Mary Pickford
At the 1936 Academy Awards ceremony, D. W. Griffith became the first individual to win an Honorary Award for his body of work. Seventy-one years and 77 (my count*) Honorary Oscar winners later, a mere eight women have been recognized for their cinematic oeuvre. The chosen 8 — 6 of them actresses, plus one actress-producer — are: Greta Garbo (at the 1955 ceremony), Lillian Gish (1971), actress-producer Mary Pickford (1976), editor Margaret Booth (1978), Barbara Stanwyck (1982), Myrna Loy (1991), Sophia Loren (1991), and Deborah Kerr (1994).
Considering the amount of female talent that has gone un-honored these past seven decades, I find it impossible not to believe that the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a long-standing problem when it comes to recognizing women’s achievements on a par with those of men. In that regard, the Academy is as selectively near-sighted as the vast majority of film critics and historians — but that is no excuse.
Women, in fact, have fared no better at winning any of the Academy’s honorary prizes. To date, not a single woman has won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given out since 1937 to "creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production," or the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, given out since 1981 to "an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry."
True, the complete absence of women from the list of Thalberg Award winners could be explained by the fact that until quite recently precious few women have been involved in the production of Hollywood movies. (That said, Margaret Ménégoz, for one, has been quite busy for decades producing high-quality films overseas.) The same type of gender imbalance in the technical development of motion pictures may also explain the absence of female Sawyer Award winners.
But what about the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award? In the last 51 years, 32 individuals have been recognized for their "humanitarian efforts [that] have brought credit to the industry." Of these, only five have been women, four of them actresses: Martha Raye (at the 1969 ceremony), Rosalind Russell (1973), Elizabeth Taylor (1993), Audrey Hepburn (1993, right), and this year’s honoree, former Paramount chairman Sherry Lansing.
Are women then more self-absorbed than men? Or does the Academy’s Board of Governors believe that women’s deeds carry less importance than men’s deeds?
Now, I’m not arguing that the Academy should impose some sort of — however unofficial — quota system. That would be both unfair and unworkable, especially considering that throughout the decades men have kept a stranglehold in the industry’s top positions, both in front and behind the camera. As a consequence of this male dominance, it is to be expected that the Academy would honor many more males than females, as the male talent pool is much larger. But, going back to the career achievement Oscar, would that gap explain a male-female ratio of nearly 10 to 1?
No, it wouldn’t. Even sticking only to the acting branch, the ratio currently stands at 28† to 7, or 4 to 1.
Thus, sexism is the only plausible answer, for it is tied to the widespread prejudice that women’s issues — whether in life or on-screen — are less significant than those of men. Women certainly haven’t been ignored because Academy Board members have been unable to find qualified Honorary Award candidates.
Danielle Darrieux in La Ronde (top); Darrieux, Isabelle Huppert in 8 Women (bottom)
Actresses Danielle Darrieux (more than 75 years of screen work, and still active), Doris Day, Lauren Bacall**, Michèle Morgan, Julie Andrews, Julie Christie, Shirley MacLaine, Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, Liv Ullmann, Monica Vitti, Debbie Reynolds, Jennifer Jones, Joan Fontaine, Joanne Woodward, Micheline Presle, Jean Simmons, and Angela Lansbury.
Also, Mia Farrow, Vanessa Redgrave, Gina Lollobrigida, Eleanor Parker, Eva Marie Saint, Jane Wyman, Patricia Neal, Anouk Aimée, Annie Girardot, Barbra Streisand; directors Agnès Varda and Lina Wertmuller; editors Dede Allen and Anne V. Coates (who’s just received Bafta’s Academy Fellowship); and screenwriter Harriet Frank, Jr., are some of the female film veterans who still haven’t received an Honorary Oscar for their body of work.
Some of those women won a single Oscar decades ago; others have never won. Some have never even been nominated.
I did not include Olivia de Havilland, Elizabeth Taylor, Maggie Smith, Glenda Jackson, and Jane Fonda in the list above because each one of them has already won two best actress awards, while Thelma Schoonmaker has already won two best editing Oscars. Only someone like Elia Kazan — i.e., with friends in high Academy places — can have two Academy Award wins and still be allowed to get a third statuette for career achievement.
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Tags: Academy Awards, Audrey Hepburn, Catherine Deneuve, Classic Movies, Danielle Darrieux, Doris Day, Film Awards, Honorary Oscar, Jeanne Moreau, Lauren Bacall, Mary Pickford
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This has long been a sore issue with the Academy for me, like 30 years or so, back when they gave the career achivement award to Alec Guinness. Yes, he deserved being honored but can anyone defend giving him such an award over Gloria Swanson or Mae West, both of them alive and well at the time and whose cinema careers certainly dwarf Mr. Guinness’.
Jane Russell founded WAIF back in the 1950’s which has since placed over 50,000 children in American homes yet she has yet to be given the Humanitarian award and I wonder if she has ever even being seriously considered.
There would be no Motion Picture Home without Mary Pickford’s activity and yet she was apparently never considered for the Humanitarian award either despite the fact that thousands in the industry have benefited from it. And they were ridiculously late giving Mary the “career achievement” Oscar – and THAT was met by a lot of bitchy mysogenetic talk and articles about how old and frail she was!