Producer and composer Quincy Jones, casting director Juliet Taylor, director Richard Curtis and James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli will receive Honorary Academy Awards at the Governors Awards on Nov. 17, the Academy’s Board of Governors announced Wednesday.
Jones and Taylor will receive Academy Honorary Awards, while Curtis will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and Wilson and Broccoli will be given the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
The awards were voted on by the Academy’s Board of Governors. Honorary awards were initially presented on the Academy Awards telecast, but since 2009 they have been handed out in a separate ceremony, the Governors Awards. In the 15 years that the Governors Awards has taken place, this will be only the second time that the recipients have not included at least one actor.
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“The recipients of this year’s Governors Awards have set the bar incredibly high across their remarkable careers, and the Academy’s Board of Governors is thrilled to recognize them with Oscars,” Academy president Janet Yang said in a statement. “The selection of Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli is a testament to their success as producers of the fan-favorite Bond series and their contribution to the industry’s theatrical landscape. Richard Curtis is a brilliant comedic storyteller whose tremendous charitable efforts embody the meaning of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Quincy Jones’ artistic genius and relentless creativity have made him one of the most influential musical figures of all time. Juliet Taylor has cast iconic and beloved films and paved a new path for the field. Their profound love of cinema and indelible contribution to our art form make these five individuals truly deserving of these honors.”
Jones has received seven Oscar nominations for composing and producing, including a Best Picture nomination for “The Color Purple.” He was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1994 and produced the Oscar ceremony in 1996.
Taylor is a casting director whose films include “Taxi Driver,” “Annie Hall,” “Schindler’s List” and “Sleepless in Seattle.” She will be the second casting director to receive an Honorary Oscar, after Lynn Stalmaster in 2016.
Curtis is a writer-director whose films include “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill” and “Love Actually.” He is the cofounder of Comic Relief U.K. and USA, Make Poverty History, Project Everyone and Make My Money Matter, with his fundraising work bringing in more than $2 billion over four decades. The Hersholt award is not given out every year, but this is the fifth consecutive year it has been awarded, with Curtis following Tyler Perry, Danny Glover, Michael J. Fox and Michelle Satter.
Wilson and Broccoli are the producers of the James Bond series of films, taking over in the 1990s after the death of original producer Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, Barbara Broccoli’s father. They will be the 40th recipients of the Thalberg Award. Broccoli will be the second woman to receive the Thalberg, after Kathleen Kennedy in 2018, and the second second-generation recipient. Her father received the award in 1981 after producing the first 12 Bond films. (The other parent-child Thalberg recipients were Darryl F. Zanuck, who received it three times between 1937 and 1950, and Richard D. Zanuck, who received it in 1990.)
The Governors Awards will take place at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood on Nov. 17. With the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes delaying last year’s ceremony to January of this year, this will mark the second time that two Governors Awards ceremonies will take place in the same calendar year. Two ceremonies also took place in 2022 because the 2021 awards were delayed by the pandemic.
