Oscar-winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola (best known for The Godfather trilogy) will receive the Thalberg Award.
Historian Kevin Brownlow, French director Jean-Luc Godard, and actor Eli Wallach (who was never nominated for an Oscar) will receive honorary Oscars at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ second Governors Awards ceremonies, November 13 at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland.
The kudos were voted Tuesday night by the organization’s board of governors, though an announcement was held off until the Academy could notify all the recipients.
Sid Ganis will produce the non-televised event. This will mark the second time for the separate ceremony, after last year’s November 14 ceremony, in which John Calley received the Thalberg Award and Honorary Oscars went to Roger Corman, Gordon Willis and Lauren Bacall.
When the Acad last year announced the Governors Awards as Oscar’s first separate offshoot rites, some critics expressed skepticism. However, after the event, the consensus was that the event was a success.
Time constraints are always a consideration during the Oscarcast, and many AMPAS board members had previously been reluctant to vote more than one or two special achievement honors each year, for fear of lengthening the ceremony even further.
By having a separate evening, the board of directors decided they could salute as many people as they wanted, and could give sufficient time to each honoree, with tributes from multiple co-workers and friends for each person, as well as plentiful film clips. By keeping the number of attendees down and making a private ceremony of the dinner-and-presentations, AMPAS said at the time it wanted to invoke the early days of the Academy Awards.
