December 19, 2006
Directors Guild of America President Michael Apted and DGA Awards Chair Howard Storm today announced the recipients of four special DGA Awards recognizing lifetime career achievement and extraordinary contributions to the Guild:
- Director/actor/producer/author Carl Reiner will receive the 2007 Honorary Life Member Award, which is given recognition of his service to the Guild and his outstanding creative achievements.
- Directors Paris Barclay and Taylor Hackford will receive the 2007 Robert B. Aldrich Service Award for extraordinary service to the DGA and its membership.
- News Director George Paul will receive the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award in News Direction.
- Stage Manager/Associate Director Terry Benson will receive the 2007 Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award, which is given to an Associate Director or Stage Manager in recognition of career achievement in the industry and service to the Directors Guild of America.
All four awards will be given at the 59th Annual DGA Awards Dinner on Saturday, February 3, 2007 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.
"The Directors Guild draws its strength from the service and commitment of its members, and these five special award winners epitomize that dedication at its highest level," Apted said. "By recognizing their lifetime achievements and contributions to the Guild, we are honoring our founding principles of distinguished work and service."
"I am especially excited that the Guild is bestowing the Honorary Life Member Award to Carl, who over the years has made the DGA Awards such a memorable and exciting night," Storm said. "Our members look forward to his wry humor and sharp wit year after year, and Carl is truly DGA family."
Carl Reiner has won twelve Emmy Awards, created and co-starred in The Dick Van Dyke Show, and directed 15 feature films including The Jerk, All of Me, Oh God!, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Where's Poppa. To Guild members, Reiner is also the frequent and beloved host of the DGA Awards, which he will again handle this year in his 20th year as master of ceremonies. Born in the Bronx, the son of a watchmaker, Reiner started his working life before he was seventeen as a machinist's helper in the millinery trade. At the same time, he enrolled in drama school and toured in a Shakespearean repertory company before being drafted into the Army. In World War II, he served various duties, including as a comedian and actor with Maurice Evans' Special Services Entertainment Unit and was honorably discharged in 1946. Reiner then appeared in the leading role in the national and New York companies of Call Me Mister and spent the next three years in various Broadway musicals. He then joined Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca on Your Show of Shows. In 1958, he published his first novel, Enter Laughing, a semi-autobiographical work chronicling his early frustrations as a machinist's helper who broke into show business. The book was adapted for a Broadway play by Joe Stein, and for a feature film that Reiner co-produced and, for the first time, directed.
Created by Reiner, The Dick Van Dyke Show went on the air in 1961 and became one of the most famous and best loved sitcoms in television history, and gave Reiner a chance to co-star as the toupee-wearing producer Alan Brady. That same year, he wrote his first feature film, The Thrill of it All, for Doris Day and James Garner. His other feature credits as a director include The Comic, co-written by Reiner and Aaron Ruben; Where's Poppa?, starring George Segal and Ruth Gordon; Oh God!, starring George Burns; the Steve Martin films The Jerk, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Man With Two Brains and All of Me; Summer Rental with John Candy; The One And Only with Henry Winkler; Summer School with Mark Harmon; Bert Rigby, You're A Fool, which he also wrote; Sibling Rivalry with Kirstie Alley; Fatal Instinct with Sean Young, Armand Assante and Kate Nelligan; and That Old Feeling with Bette Midler and Dennis Farina. As an actor, Reiner has had starring roles in numerous films, mostly recently portraying Saul Bloom in the 2002 remake of Ocean's Eleven, a role he reprised in Ocean's Twelve (2004) and the 2007 release Ocean's Thirteen, and on such TV shows as The Bernie Mac Show, Crossing Jordan, The Bonnie Hunt Show and Boston Legal. Reiner has published several books, including the novels All Kinds of Love, Continue Laughing, and his latest novel, NNNNN.
Paris Barclay, an acclaimed director on such series as NYPD Blue, ER and The West Wing, became active in the DGA soon after joining. He has served on the African-American Steering Committee since 1993 and joined the Western Directors Council in 1997 as an alternate before becoming a permanent member in 1999. Barclay was elected to the National Board as an alternate in 1997 and has served on the Board as Third Vice President from 1999 to 2005, when he became First Vice President. He co-chaired the African American Steering Committee from 2000-2002, and has co-chaired the Diversity Committee (with President Michael Apted) since 2004. Barclay has served on the Single-Camera Creative Rights Negotiating Committee since 1996, and created and coordinated the Single Camera Directors Prep Program in 2001. He also serves as a member of the Violence and Social Responsibility Task Force. Barclay is sharing the Robert B. Aldrich Award with Third Vice President Taylor Hackford, with whom he has co-chaired the DGA PAC Leadership Council since 2002.
Barclay has balanced Guild service and a thriving career as a director. He has received a DGA Award and two Emmy Awards for his work on NYPD Blue (including Jimmy Smits' final episode) and was nominated for an Emmy Award for directing an episode of The West Wing. He has received six DGA Award nominations for episodes of ER, NYPD Blue, House and for every episode he ever directed of The West Wing. He has directed more than 80 hours of television including Lost, CSI, Law & Order, The Shield, Numb3rs and F/X's new series Dirt - earning a Golden Globe nomination, the Peabody Award, the Alma Award, and sharing two Humanitas prizes. Barclay co-created the series City of Angels (an NAACP Award Winner for Best Drama Series), co-wrote and directed the pilot Hate for Showtime, and served as co-executive producer and principal director of Cold Case. He also directed the HBO Film The Cherokee Kid(starring Sinbad, James Coburn and Burt Reynolds) and the Miramax feature parody Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.
Taylor Hackford's commitment to the DGA, for which he shares this year's Robert B. Aldrich Achievement Award, is reflective of his trademark focus and drive. Hackford began his service when he volunteered to sit on the Special Projects Committee chaired by former DGA President Robert Wise. He ran for the Western Directors Council and was elected as an alternate. Hackford was eventually elected to serve as a full-time member of the Council, as well to the National Board as Third Vice President. He has also served on the Creative Rights Committee, co-chairs the DGA's Violence and Social Responsibility Task Force, chairs the DGA's Political Action Committee, and co-chairs the DGA PAC Leadership Council with First Vice President Paris Barclay.
Hackford was Student Body President at USC, a pre-law major focusing on international relations and economics. After he graduated from USC, he entered the Peace Corps in 1968, landing in Bolivia where he started to experiment with Super 8mm film in his spare time. Realizing that he did not want to pursue a career in law, Hackford got a job in the mailroom at KCET-TV, the public TV station in Los Angeles. At KCET, Hackford pioneered the presentation of uninterrupted rock n' roll performances on U.S. television and created several award-winning documentaries for the station's cultural department, including one on Charles Bukowski that won the San Francisco Film Festival, and the CPB Award for best Cultural Program. He also served as an investigative reporter in the news division and won an Associate Press Award and two Emmy Awards for his journalism. Hackford quit the station and directed a short film, Teenage Father, that won the Academy Award in 1979 for best live-action short film. That led to the opportunity to direct his first feature film, The Idolmaker. His second film, An Officer and a Gentleman, was a commercial and critical hit in 1982. The film received a DGA Award nomination, and won two Academy Awards and was nominated for four others. Hackford has both directed and produced all of his subsequent films, which include Against All Odds, White Nights, Everybody's All-American, and the acclaimed documentary Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock n' Roll. Hackford also developed and produced La Bamba, and formed New Visions Pictures to produce modestly-budgeted films with other directors. Hackford returned to directing with the epic drama about East Los Angeles, Blood In, Blood Out (Bound By Honor), and followed it up with Dolores Claiborne. In 1996, he devoped a documentary about the legendary Muhammad Ali/George Foreman title fight, When We Were Kings, which won the 1997 Academy Award for best documentary feature. That was followed by The Devil's Advocate, Proof of Life, and Ray, a dramatic film portrait of American musical icon Ray Charles that led Hackford to be nominated for best director at the Academy Awards and DGA Awards.
News director George Paul has thrived under the pressure of getting it right - the first time - for nearly 50 years. He's traveled the world, calling the cameras on dozens of historic broadcasts for Tom Brokaw, David Brinkley, Barbara Walters, Hugh Downs, Diane Sawyer and others. At 78, Paul continues to direct for ABC's 20/20 and Primetime. Paul is only the fifth DGA member to receive the award for news direction, and has served the DGA in the mid-1960s as a National Board member representing the Midwest and briefly as Midwest Executive Secretary. He started as a stage manager at WBKB-TV (now WLS-TV) in Chicago. He worked on local and ABC network programs, including Super Circus and Kukla, Fran and Ollie, and became a local staff director and directed various news, entertainment and variety shows for the next decade. Paul became a local staff director at KNBC-TV in Los Angeles in 1969 and directed news with Tom Brokaw and Tom Snyder, sports with Bryant Gumbel, and numerous community series and variety specials. In 1976, Paul became network director on the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder for NBC in New York. In 1982, Paul started directing the Today show with Gumbel and Jane Pauley for NBC News.
It was during those years at NBC News that Paul directed the Space Shuttle Challenger launch that took Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, Brokaw's coverage of the 1988 Democratic and Republican conventions, and NBC Magazine with David Brinkley. Paul also worked with Barbara Walters after joining ABC News in 1989 and directing 20/20 with Walters and Hugh Downs. That job has lasted 17 years and more than 850 episodes, including more than 75 Barbara Walters interviews with U.S. presidents, their wives, newsmakers, entertainers and athletes. At ABC News, Paul also directed Primetime with Diane Sawyer for more than 10 years, Good Morning America, This Week With David Brinkley and 20/20 Downtown. He additionally handled numerous specials including Peter Jennings Answering Children's Questions (at the White House), Millennium 2000 from the Eiffel Tower, and the 1992 Presidential Debate between then-President George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot.
Terry Benson has devoted more than 35 years of service to the Guild and his fellow stage managers. Benson spent much of his career in public television at PBS' Channel Thirteen/WNET in New York, where he was shop steward, organizer and negotiator. At the Guild, he served on numerous committees and on the National Board, and remains an ardent supporter of the Guild's Political Action Committee and Eastern operations. He began attending AD/SM/PA Council meetings soon after he joined the DGA in 1970. He was elected to the Council in 1974 and has remained active to the present in various roles including chair, vice-chair and secretary. At WNET, he was lead negotiator and shop steward from 1976-2003, while separately stage managing many DGA Awards dinners in New York, and serving on local and national DGA committees including Internal Complaints, Work Opportunities, Organizing Waiver, Awards, the 1987 Strike Committee and the New York Building Committee. Benson was also an early advocate of the DGA's PAC and its ability to advance the Guild's political goals.
From 1971 to 2003 Benson was a staff associate at WNET, the PBS affiliate in New York City, where he worked on programs including Theater In America, The Adams Chronicles, Live from the Met and The Metropolitan Opera Presents, the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour, Carnegie Hall Opening Night, The duPont Columbia Awards, the Channel 13 Auction, Non-Fiction Television, The Great American Dream Machine, many local documentaries, experimental video at Channel 13's TV Lab, and live pledge drives. In 1991, Benson - as chair of the AD/SM/PA Council East - was able to repay part of the apprentices' debt to Chet O'Brien when he presented the first Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award to him and his brother, Mortimer "Snooks" O'Brien.
On Tuesday, January 9, 2007, the DGA will release the names of its five nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film in a 10 a.m. press conference at the Guild's Los Angeles headquarters at 7920 West Sunset Boulevard.