Director Spike Lee and actresses Gena Rowlands and Debbie Reynolds will receive honorary Oscars for their filmmaking legacies, the organizers of the world’s most coveted movie awards said Thursday. His iconic 1989 film Do The Right Thing earned him a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. She launched her career on the New York stage and in live television in the 1950s and has appeared in 40 feature films to date, from “The High Cost of Loving” in 1958 to “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks”, which she starred in earlier this year.
Advertisement
The African-American director is also an outspoken voice for the black community, often exploring race relations in his films.
Lee and Rowlands will receive the Honorary Award while Reynolds will be given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. In 1998 Lee also shared an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature for his film, “4 Little Girls“, about the 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Ala.
To watch a scene from “Do the Right Thing”, click on the video player below.
Every year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honors key Hollywood figures who, even if they’ve previously won Oscars, are due for additional recognition.
Rowlands, who received Academy Award nominations for her lead performances in “A Woman Under the Influence” and “Gloria“, both films directed by her husband and frequent collaborator, John Cassavetes, also appeared in “The Notebook” and “Playing By Heart”. She was a founding member of the Thalians, a charitable organization created by Hollywood entertainers to promote the awareness and treatment of mental illness and was that group’s president nearly continuously from 1957 to 2011.
Advertisement
The Academy’s 7th annual Governors Awards will be presented on Saturday, November 14, in Los Angeles. Over the years, the Thalians’ fund-raising efforts contributed millions to the mental Health Center at Cedars-Sinai and to UCLA’s Operation Mend, which helps military veterans.
