Comic Mel Brooks, actress Angela Bassett awarded honorary Oscars
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American actress Angela Bassett (right) and American comic and film-maker Mel Brooks during the Governors Awards on Jan 9.
PHOTO: AFP
LOS ANGELES – A 97-year-old Mel Brooks accepted a lifetime achievement Oscar in Hollywood on Jan 9, more than half a century after he won his only Academy Award with the seminal satire The Producers (1967).
At a black-tie gala, Brooks – who memorably sent up Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in The Producers, as well as exposing racial bigotry in films such as Blazing Saddles (1974) – joked that he felt bad about the fate of his previous Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
“I miss it so much. I never should have sold it,” he said, to raucous laughter in the ballroom.
“I won’t sell this one, I swear to God!”
The American comic and film-maker is one of the select few entertainers to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony – collectively called an “EGOT” – across a career spanning eight decades.
His latest honour came at the Governors Awards, hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which each year honours four beloved industry veterans, many of whom are felt to have not received their dues at the regular Oscars.
American actress Angela Bassett, who was Oscar-nominated for playing singer Tina Turner in What’s Love Got To Do With It (1993) and Queen Ramonda in 2022 superhero sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, without winning either, was also honoured on Jan 9.
Noting that she was only the second black actress to earn an honorary Oscar, after Cicely Tyson, Bassett paid tribute to other black female Hollywood pioneers such as Hattie McDaniel, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Gone With The Wind in 1940.
It would be another half-century until McDaniel was followed by Whoopi Goldberg.
“My prayer is that we leave this industry more enriched, forward-thinking and inclusive than we found it,” said Bassett. “A future where there won’t be a ‘first’ or an ‘only’, or suspense around whether ‘history will be made’ with a nomination or a win.”
‘Voting’
As well as reflecting on stellar careers, the Governors Awards represent a key chance for 2024’s Oscars hopefuls to schmooze and network with Academy voters on behalf of their latest films.
Attendees included Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr and Florence Pugh on behalf of Oppenheimer, and Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie for Barbie.
Actress Emma Stone attends the 14th Governors Awards in Los Angeles on Jan 9.
Emma Stone – fresh from her Golden Globes win for Poor Things – also attended, as did Paul Giamatti from The Holdovers, and Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese on behalf of Killers Of The Flower Moon.
“It’s award season. There’s a lot of emotion and expectation in the air. Some of you are probably even aware that voting ends in seven days,” joked the night’s host, comedian John Mulaney.
The 2024 Governors Awards were delayed due to the Hollywood actors’ strike, which prevented stars from working or promoting their movies for months, before a deal with studios was clinched in November.
(From left) Carol Littleton, Mel Brooks and Angela Bassett with their Academy Honorary Awards while Michelle Satter poses with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award on Jan 9.
The night’s other honorees were E.T. (1982) editor Carol Littleton and Michelle Satter, founding senior director of Sundance Institute’s artist programmes, which have helped foster the early careers of film-makers from Quentin Tarantino to Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.
The 96th Academy Awards will take place on March 10. AFP
