Cicely Tyson is finally getting an Oscar. The 93-year-old, who was nominated for a statuette once before in 1973 for her performance in Sounder, has been announced as one of the recipients of this year’s Honorary Awards.
She’ll be recognized alongside publicist Marvin Levy and composer Lalo Schifrin, a six-time nominee for films like Cool Hand Luke and The Amityville Horror. In addition, producing power duo Kathleen Kennedy (who also runs Lucasfilm) and Frank Marshall will be given the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. The Governors Awards will take place on November 18.
“Choosing the honorees for its awards each year is the happiest of all the Board of Governors’ work,” Academy President John Bailey said in a statement. “And this year, its selection of five iconic artists was made with universal acclaim by the Academy’s 54 spirited governors.”
Marshall celebrated the recognition on Twitter, writing that he and Kennedy, who have been married for the last 30 years, were “deeply honored.”
“Thanks for all the good wishes, it will be a grand celebration!” he wrote.
This year’s batch is a varied group, comprising a fascinating array of figures who make movies tick. Tyson is the sole performer of the bunch. The actress has been making waves since her career kicked off in 1957, quickly breaking boundaries with turns in projects like Roots, Fried Green Tomatoes, and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman—a TV movie that would go on to inspire an aspiring thespian named Viola Davis. Davis and Tyson would later work together on How to Get Away with Murder. The awards Tyson has won already run the gamut: a Tony, multiple Emmys, and even a Presidential Medal of Freedom. She will again make history at the Governors Awards, as she is the first black woman to receive an Oscar in the honorary award category.
Like the rest of her fellow awardees, this will be the first Oscar for Tyson. Like Schifrin, Kennedy and Marshall have been nominated a handful of times for a variety of best-picture contenders, including The Sixth Sense and The Color Purple—though they have never managed to clinch the category (not yet, anyway). Levy, who has worked on campaigns for several Steven Spielberg movies stretching all the way back to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, will be the first publicist to win this Oscar.
vanityfair.com
