Jackie Chan to Receive Honorary Oscar
Jackie Chan, Anne V. Coates, Lynn Stalmaster, Frederick Wiseman (Photos: Zhong Zhi/Getty Images; John Sciulli/Getty Images; John Sciulli/WireImage; Dominique Charriau/WireImage)
By Gregg Kilday, The Hollywood Reporter
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will bestow honorary awards this year on Jackie Chan, film editor Anne V. Coates, casting director Lynn Stalmaster and doc filmmaker Frederick Wiseman as it tips its hat to various aspects of filmmaking.
The awards were voted on Tuesday night at a meeting of the Academy’s board of governors and will be presented at the eighth annual Governors Awards, scheduled to take place Nov. 12 at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood and Highland.
Honorary awards are given each year for lifetime achievements, exceptional contributions to motion picture arts and sciences, and outstanding service to the Academy. “The Honorary Award was created for artists like Jackie Chan, Anne Coates, Lynn Stalmaster and Frederick Wiseman – true pioneers and legends in their crafts,” Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs said in making the announcement. "The Board is proud to honor their extraordinary achievements, and we look forward to celebrating with them at the Governors Awards in November.”
The charismatic Chan, 62, has starred in — often also writing, directing and producing — more than 30 martial arts features in his native Hong Kong. He segued into Hollywood movies with 1996’s Rumble in the Bronx. His subsequent films have included the Rush Hour movies, Shanghai Noon, Around the World in 80 Days and The Karate Kid and he has also leant his voice to the Kung Fu Panda animated movies.
The highly-respected Coates, 90, won an Oscar for editing 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia. Born in Reigate, England, she has spent more than 60 years as a film editor, also receiving Academy Award nominations for Becket, The Elephant Man, In the Line of Fire and Out of Sight. She most recently worked on 2015’s Fifty Shades of Grey.
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Stalmaster, 88, a native of Omaha, Nebraska, started out as stage and screen actor before moving into casting in the 1950s. Having cast more than 500 films, which have included modern-day classics like In The Heat of the Night, The Graduate, Tootsie and The Right Stuff, he has boosted the careers of actors ranging from Jon Voight and Richard Dreyfuss to Jill Clayburgh and John Travolta.
Wiseman, 86 and based in Cambridge, Mass., is a prolific documentary filmmaker whose work might as well be considered a sub-genre of its own. Beginning with 1967’s Titicut Follies, which looked at a hospital for the criminally insane, he has trained his cameras on a series of American institutions in films like Law and Order, Public Housing and National Gallery. Using long, uninterrupted takes, he watches as the drama play out, without offering any overlay of commentary. Despite his standing in his field, though, he’s never been nominated for an Oscar.
Last year’s honorees included Gena Rowlands and Spike Lee, who both received honorary Oscars, and Debbie Reynolds, who was recognized with the Hersholt Award.