Oscar 2010: Honorary Awards Relocated

Unfortunately, the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has decided to come up with a new annual event to present its special awards – the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Honorary Award.
I say "unfortunately" because in my view the presence of veterans like, say, Deborah Kerr or Ennio Morricone, are the highlights of the Oscar ceremony. But then again, perhaps they’ll now find some extra time to add more Hugh Jackman musical numbers for those who are into that sort of stuff.
From now on, special honorees will be selected and announced in September (instead of December); [...]

by Andre Soares | June 27, 2009   
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Jerry Lewis’ Humanitarian Gay Slur Controversy

Nikki Finke on the announcement that Jerry Lewis will be given the 2009 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at Deadline Hollywood:
"I also have learned that protests are coming into the Academy about its Board of Governors’ choice of Jerry Lewis to receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. The controversy is over his recent repeated and public anti-gay slurs. The Hollywood gay community, joined by much of the showbiz straight community, is already on edge because of Proposition 8 passed last month outlawing same-sex unions in California. So the vote by the AMPAS board selecting Lewis seems like ’salt poured into an open wound’, according to one of my sources. Already several prominent entertainment biz gays have questioned [...]

by Andre Soares | December 21, 2008   
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Oscar 2009: Jerry Lewis to Receive Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award

Jerry Lewis, 82, will receive the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 2009 Academy Awards ceremony on February 22, 2009. The Jean Hersholt award — an Oscar statuette — is given to "an individual in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry."
Jerry Lewis is well known for raising funds every year on behalf of the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA), where he has served as national chairman since 1952. As per the Academy’s press release, since the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon kicked off in 1966, the program has raised more than $2 billion for the cause.
Among former recipients of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award [...]

by Deborah Arthur | December 10, 2008   
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Oscar 2007: Sherry Lansing to Receive Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award

Sherry Lansing, the former Paramount chairman and an advocate for cancer research, has been voted the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Lansing will receive the award at the 2007 Academy Awards ceremony on February 25, 2007.
The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award is named after Danish-born actor Jean Hersholt, who played leads and top supporting roles in Hollywood movies from the 1920s to the 1940s, among them Erich von Stroheim’s Greed, D. W. Griffith’s The Battle of the Sexes, Edmund Goulding’s Academy Award winner Grand Hotel, and George Cukor’s Dinner at 8.
In the late 1930s, Hersholt helped to form the Motion Picture Relief Fund, an organization [...]

by Andre Soares | December 14, 2006   
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