LOS ANGELES — Angelina Jolie will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her philanthropic work, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Thursday.
The award is one of four honorary Governors Awards the academy will present this fall in connection with the Oscars.
Ms. Jolie, a best supporting actress winner in 1999 for “Girl, Interrupted,” has collaborated extensively with the Council on Foreign Relations and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and has visited many refugee camps. Her acting career has included films like “A Mighty Heart” that tackle humanitarian issues.
Other honorary Oscars will go to Angela Lansbury, who has garnered three Academy Award nominations over her career, for “Gaslight,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “The Manchurian Candidate”; Steve Martin, a three-time Oscar host who is known for his versatility as a writer, actor, comedian and musician; and Piero Tosi, a costume designer who collaborated with the Italian director Luchino Visconti on films like “White Nights” and “Rocco and His Brothers.”
The academy’s Thalberg Award, which periodically honors a film producer for outstanding lifetime achievement, will not be presented, for the third year in a row. The last person to receive the Thalberg Award was Francis Ford Coppola in 2010.
The academy selected the honorees at a meeting on Tuesday night. The announcement was delayed until Thursday, the academy said, because the organization needed to notify the honorees privately before announcing their names publicly. It’s normally a relatively speedy process, but at midday Wednesday an academy spokeswoman warned in an e-mail, “We’re still trying to contact the honorees. Thanks for your patience.”
An academy official insisted there was nothing fishy afoot – an honoree refusing to accept an honor, for instance – and that it was simply a matter of tracking down people who were traveling, on vacation or otherwise determined not to be disturbed.
The Governors Awards will be presented at a dinner ceremony on Nov. 16. The Oscar ceremony will be held March 2.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/business/media/jolie-among-4-recipients-of-honorary-oscars.html?partner=rss&emc=rss