Honorary Oscars

[Reza]

The Academy has never awarded a special award to an actor who has predominantly worked in foreign films (Sophia Loren doesn't count).

Would be wonderful to see the great Jeanne Moreau get one.

[OscarGuy]

I think Christopher Plummer may be on the top of a lot of lists...but who knows for sure.

[rudeboy]

Max von Sydow would be my top choice. He's still extremely active into his 80s and has a long career behind him that has taken in classics of world cinema and megabucks blockbusters. Yet he has only one solitary nomination to his name.

[Damien]

Maybe we can get a Maureen O'Hara and/or Debbie Reynolds movement going. They're both deserving, and it worked for Deborah Kerr.

[Big Magilla]

True, but the Board of Governors knows who Lansbury is.

I have often wished that the Academy would honor the contribution of character actors and actresses who never won an Oscar and cap it off with an award to a still living character actor and actress. Eli Wallach might be the actor and Angela Lansbury would certainly qualify among the actresses. If the idea though, is to honor someone whose contribution to film was as a star then Maureen O'Hara and Doris Day should certainly come before Lansbury and perhaps so should Glenn Close, but not yet. She's still very much in the midst of an active career.

Debbie Reynolds should receive the Hersholt for her many humanitarian efforts.

[FilmFan720]

In regards to the Angela Lansbury conversation, I think the problem isn't the recent nature of her film work but the fact that to a lot of the younger generation she isn't thought of as a movie star. Everyone knows her as a TV star from the 1980s, and she is certainly a grand dame of the theatre, but she usually isn't considered in the list of great film actresses to a more casual of younger moviegoer. Looking at people like Doris Day and Maureen O'Hara and Debbie Reynolds and Lauren Bacall, who are all undeniable movie stars, I think a lot of people think of Angela Lansbury as a great stage actress who has made some movies.

[Mike Kelly]

Finding a non-nominee not on OG's exhaustive list, is difficult. How about Eli Wallach?. He's still making movies at age 94, with two noteworthy releases this year, The Ghost Writer and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

[Snick's Guy]

I would also include Burt Reynolds as a possibility for a lifetime achievement award in the near future.

In the actress group, we have a growing number over the age of 60 (or getting really close) who were deserving, but never made it to the winner's podium. look for any number of these woman as recipients over the next twenty years:

Sigourney Weaver
Glenn Close
Mia Farrow
Gena Rowlands
Jane Alexander
Cicely Tyson
Lily Tomlin
Bette Midler
Marsha Mason
Jill Clayburgh
Ann-Margret
Debra Winger
Judy Davis
Angela Bassett

[Big Magilla]

It's supposedly a career changer for Heigl. If Sandra Bullock can do it...

[OscarGuy]

Reynolds should have been nominated for and won for Mother. If it's Katherine Heigl, it's bound to be derivative fluff.

[Big Magilla]

Incidentally Debbie Reynolds is making another comeback. It was announced Thursday that she will play Katherine Heigl's grandmother-mentor in One for the Money based on a best-selling novel about an amateur bounty hunter.

It doesn't sound like an Oscar caliber film but who knows, Debbie could conceivably get her first nomination in 37 years putting her in serious Helen Hayes territory. Hayes received her second nomination (and win) 38 years after her first.



Edited By Big Magilla on 1282480265

[OscarGuy]

Precious pretty much hits the nail on the head of why I did not include Doris Day...from everything I've ever read regarding discussions of her receipt of the award is that she would not accept it.

[Big Magilla]

There was a time when they gave career achievement Oscars to actors/actresses who had never even been nominated, e.g. Myrna Loy, Edward G. Robinson and 24 years before his sole nomination - Fred Astaire.

With that in mind, I think Maureen O'Hara has a definite shot. And why isn't Doris Day on the short list?

Maybe because Jean-Luc Godard, Doris wouldn't accept it.

We don't really know that.

She is a recluse and wont fly which is why she wouldn't accept a Kennedy Center tribute but with the right approach she might be enticed to show up. That is if the tabloid rumors of her mental and physical states aren't exaggerated enough to preclude it.

[Precious Doll]

There was a time when they gave career achievement Oscars to actors/actresses who had never even been nominated, e.g. Myrna Loy, Edward G. Robinson and 24 years before his sole nomination - Fred Astaire.

With that in mind, I think Maureen O'Hara has a definite shot. And why isn't Doris Day on the short list?

Maybe because like Jean-Luc Godard, Doris wouldn't accept it.



Edited By Precious Doll on 1282480226

[Big Magilla]

There was a time when they gave career achievement Oscars to actors/actresses who had never even been nominated, e.g. Myrna Loy, Edward G. Robinson and 24 years before his sole nomination - Fred Astaire.

With that in mind, I think Maureen O'Hara has a definite shot. And why isn't Doris Day on the short list?