Equity Honors Jones with Paul Robeson Award
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James Earl Jones is the recipient of the 2011 Actors’ Equity (AEA) Paul Robeson Award. The annual award honors performers who best exemplify the principles the legendary actor, singer, author and activist lived by.
Jones, who is currently starring in a London West End production of “Driving Miss Daisy,” says in a statement that he briefly met Robeson three times, including once when he had the chance to hear him sing.
I was standing in the back of the concert hall and can describe the experience best by saying it was as if my soul was being rocked. It was the first time I understood what human magnetism was. Mr. Robeson was blessed with many endowments—among them the scholarship and athleticism of his youth, and the activist commitment that followed his fame as a performer.
Screen Actors to Honor Mary Tyler Moore
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We loved Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and as the iconic Mary Richards on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” roles in which she created a new paradigm for female leads in television.
Now, her colleagues and co-workers plan to honor Moore with the Screen Actors (SAG) Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment. She will receive the award at the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards—the nation’s largest and only-nationally televised all-union awards show—which premieres live on TNT and TBS Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, at 8 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. CT, 6 p.m. MT and 5 p.m. PT. SAG represents nearly 120,000 actors in film, television, industrials, commercials and music videos.
An accomplished actress, Moore has won seven Emmys, a Tony and an Academy Award nomination. She has won honors for her courageous performances, including her role as TV correspondent Betty Rollin who was battling breast cancer in “First, You Cry.” On the big screen, she has portrayed characters as varied as Beth Jarrett, a bitter mother coping with the death of a son in “Ordinary People,” to Elvis Presley’s last female co-star in “Change of Habit.” She was a hit on Broadway playing a quadriplegic sculptor fighting to determine her own destiny in “Whose Life Is It, Anyway?”
Stars Light Up SAG Awards
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| The Screen Actors honored James Earl Jones for his lifetime achievement as an actor and humanitarian. |
Last night, the stars were out in Hollywood as the members of the Screen Actors (SAG) honored their own at the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® show.
The cast of “Slumdog Millionaire” took home the top honor for best performance by a cast in a motion picture. Meryl Streep and Sean Penn won the awards for best performance by an actress and actor in a leading role for their performances in “Doubt” and “Milk,” respectively.
The other winners included the late Heath Ledger who won best performance as a supporting actor for his role in “The Dark Knight.” On the TV side, Hugh Laurie (“House”) and Sally Field ( Brothers & Sisters) were honored for their performances in a drama series and the cast of “30 Rock” swept the TV comedy category with Alec Baldwin winning best actor, Tina Fey best actress and the entire cast winning the award foir best ensemble. You can check out all last night’s winners here.
During his remarks, SAG President Alan Rosenberg spoke about the importance of the union to the nation’s actors.
SAG is a union. We are proud to be union and and we look forward to the day when all workers can have the freedom to join a union.
James Earl Jones received the Lifetime Achievement Award, the union’s highest honor. Jones joins an all-star cast of previous winners, who include Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward (1986), Elizabeth Taylor (1997), Ricardo Montelbán (1993), Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee (2000), Edward Asner (2001), Clint Eastwood (2002), Shirley Temple Black (2005), Julie Andrews (2006) and Charles Durning (2007).
In an interview with SAG’s magazine, Screen Actor, Jones says the recognition by his peers is special:
So often you think, well is this is a popularity contest? You can never answer that, or disprove it, really. But in this case it is the people who do the same work you do, saying that work is good. And that’s important.
Don’t Miss SAG Awards This Sunday
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| Angela Bassett, star of the TV series “ER,” is one of the presenters at this year’s SAG Awards. |
It’s time for the biggest awards show in Hollywood—the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®. The only all-union awards show honors Screen Actors (SAG) members for their outstanding performances over the past year. This year SAG is bestowing its highest award for Life Achievement to James Earl Jones.
SAG is America’s largest union representing working actors, with 120,000 members in film, television, commercials, video games, music videos and other new media. The SAG Awards is the only nationally televised awards show of any kind that honors the work of union members.
There is a star-studded lineup of presenters, including Christina Applegate, Angela Bassett, Jon Hamm, John Krasinski, Eric McCormack, Kyra Sedgwick and William Shatner and Forest Whitaker.
The 2009 SAG Awards® ceremony will be simulcast live nationally on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Jan. 25, at 8 p.m. EST/PST, 7 p.m. CDT and 6 p.m. MST from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center. An encore presentation will air on TNT at 11 p.m. EST/PST. For satellite and HD viewers, the live presentation can be seen on TBS and TNT at 8 p.m. EST (5 p.m. PST), while the encore can be seen on TNT at 11 p.m. EST (8 p.m. PST).
