Sidney Lumet to Receive Honorary Oscar
by Andre Soares
The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has chosen director Sidney Lumet, 80, as the next recipient of an Honorary Oscar.
The Award, in honor of Lumet’s "brilliant services to screenwriters, performers and the art of the motion picture," will be presented at the 77th Academy Awards ceremony on February 27, 2005.
"Lumet is one of the most important film directors in the history of American cinema," said Academy President Frank Pierson, "and 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, who made his feature film début in 1957, has been nominated four times for a Directing Academy Award: 12 Angry Men (1957) with Henry Fonda, Dog Day Afternoon (1975) with Al Pacino, Network (1976) with William Holden, Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway, and The Verdict (1982) with Paul Newman. He also received a nomination for adapted screenplay (with Jay Presson Allen) for Prince of the City in 1981.
Other films include Long Day’s Journey into Night (1962) with Katharine Hepburn and Jason Robards, Fail-Safe (1964) with Henry Fonda, The Pawnbroker (1965) with Rod Steiger, The Group (1966) with Candice Bergen, The Appointment (1969) with Omar Sharif and Anouk Aimée, Serpico (1973) with Al Pacino, Murder on the Orient Express (1974) with Albert Finney, Equus (1977) with Richard Burton, The Wiz (1978) with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, Deathtrap (1982) with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve, Garbo Talks (1984) with Anne Bancroft, The Morning After (1986) with Jane Fonda, Running on Empty (1988) with Christine Lahti, and Guilty as Sin (1993) with Rebecca De Mornay.
Sidney Lumet’s Find Me Guilty, with Vin Diesel, is currently in post-production.
Thus far, 18 performances in Lumet’s films have gone on to receive Academy Award nominations, including those of Hepburn, Steiger, Pacino (twice), Burton, Holden, and Finney. Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, and Beatrice Straight (supporting actress) won Oscars for Network. Ingrid Bergman won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Murder on the Orient Express.
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