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The 15th Governors Awards
presents Honorary Oscars to composer & producer Quincy Jones (1933-2024)
and casting director Juliet Taylor; along with the Jean Hersholt
Humanitarian Award to filmmaker Richard Curtis, and Irving G. Thalberg
Memorial Award to James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson & Barbara
Broccoli. The four Oscar® statuettes were presented at the
Academy’s 15th Governors Awards on Sunday, November 17, 2024, in Los
Angeles. Quincy Jones was celebrated posthumously, having passed away on
November 3rd at the age of 91. His honorary Oscar statuette was accepted
by his daughter actress/writer Rashida Jones, who, flanked by some of her
siblings, tearfully paid tribute to her father and read the speech that he
had planned to give at the ceremony. |
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The Irving G. Thalberg
Memorial Award is voted by the Academy’s Board of Governors and is
presented to “creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a
consistently high quality of motion picture production.” Five-time
James Bond actor Daniel Craig presented the award to Michael G. Wilson and
his half-sister Barbara Broccoli. The award is named in honour of the man
who became head of production at the Universal Film Manufacturing Co. at
the age of 20 and three years later was vice president and head of
production for Louis B. Mayer. A year later, Mayer's studio became part of
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) with Thalberg assuming the position of vice
president and supervisor of production. Over the next eight years MGM
became Hollywood's most prestigious film studio, with Thalberg personally
supervising the studio's top productions. Thalberg died of pneumonia in
1936 at the age of 37. The following year, the Academy instituted the
Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. Although not presented each year
previous recipients include Walt Disney, Cecil B. DeMille, Robert Wise,
Alfred Hitchcock, Ingmar Bergman, Steven Spielberg, Billy Wilder, George
Lucas, Clint Eastwood and Francis Ford Coppola. |
