Half of the 842 new members invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) are women, the group announced on Monday.
The organization behind the Oscars also disclosed that more than one fourth (29%) of the new invitees are people of color.
Should those people accept, and they usually do, the Academy will have doubled the percentage of nonwhite people in their ranks in four years.
In 2015, people of color accounted for only 8% of the Academy body.
In 2019, it stands at 16%, the Academy reported.
The Academy counts 8,946 active members, with 8,733 eligible to vote on the Oscars. The total membership with retired members is 9,794. This year’s number falls short of 2018’s record of 928 invitations.
New members include “Crazy Rich Asians” director Jon Chu, actors Winston Duke and Gemma Chan, and screenwriters Ritesh Batra (“Photograph”), Chinonye Chukwu (“Clemency”), Park Young-soo (“Detective Dee”) and Ryo Sakaguchi (“Ant-Man and the Wasp”).
Actors Branch:
It is shocking to realize that the Academy has finally invited two legendary players, each claiming over half a century of distinguished performances: Claire Bloom and Jean-Louis Trintignant. I had assumed that Bloom and Trintignant had become Oscar voters decades ago.
In 1952, Bloom, who just turned 88, has left her mark on each and every medium of entertainment. In 1952, Bloom was discovered by Charlie Chaplin, who cast her as a lead in Limelight.
During her film career, she starred alongside numerous major actors, including Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Paul Scofield, Ralph Richardson, Yul Brynner, George C. Scott, James Mason, Paul Newman, Cliff Robertson, Anthony Hopkins and Rod Steiger (to whom she was married in the 1960s).
At age 16, she debuted on the London stage, soon taking roles in various Shakespeare plays. They included Hamlet, in which she played Ophelia alongside Richard Burton. Upon seeing her as Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet,” British critic Kenneth Tynan stated, “she’s the best Juliet I’ve ever seen.” When she starred as Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” playwright Tennessee Williams reportedly stated, “I declare myself absolutely wild about Claire Bloom.”
