Warren Beatty to be Honored by BAFTA LA

Annette Bening and Warren Beatty at The Women premiere
Annette Bening and Warren Beatty at ‘The Women’ premiere (Photo © Richard Chavez)

Academy Award winner Warren Beatty will receive the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film at the 2011 BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Awards on November 30th. The announcement was made today by Nigel Lythgoe, Chairman of BAFTA LA. Alan Cumming will host the star-studded event, which will air on TV Guide Network on December 4th.

“Warren Beatty is an undisputed film icon who, during nearly a half-century, has created a body of work that transcends trends and remains timeless,” stated Lythgoe. “He is a powerful and original creative force, both in front and behind the camera, and it is our distinct pleasure to honor and celebrate his immense talents.”

Beatty’s the latest celebrity to join the list of this year’s honorees which already includes Ben Stiller, Helena Bonham Carter, John Lasseter, and David Yates.

More on Warren Beatty [courtesy of BAFTA LA]

A star since his first film, Splendor in the Grass, in 1961, Warren Beatty has been said to have demonstrated a greater longevity in movies than any actor of his generation.

Few people have taken so many responsibilities for all phases of the production of films as producer, director, writer, and actor, and few have evidenced so high a level of integrity in a body of work. At least fifteen of his films are often referred to as classics: Bonnie and Clyde, Shampoo, Reds, Heaven Can Wait, Dick Tracy, Bugsy, Bulworth, Splendor in the Grass, All Fall Down, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Mickey One, The Only Game in Town, Lilith, and The Parallax View.

Only Beatty and Orson Welles have been nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as an actor, a director, a writer, and a producer for the same film. Beatty did it twice, for Heaven Can Wait and again for Reds. Welles once for Citizen Kane.

Beatty has been nominated fifteen times in these categories and eight pictures he has produced have earned 53 nominations. In 1980 he won the Academy Award for Directing and in 2000 was given the Academy’s highest honor, the Irving G. Thalberg Award.

He has won the Best Director Award from the Directors Guild of America and has been nominated twice. He has won the Writers Guild of America Award three times for Best Screenplay and has been nominated four times. He has won sixteen awards from the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics, the National Board of Review, and the Golden Globes. In France he was made a Commander of Arts and Letters in 1990. In Great Britain he has received The British Academy’s highest honor – a Fellowship in 2000.

In Italy he received the David di Donatello award in 1968 and again in 1981 and its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998. In Spain he was awarded the Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award. The National Association of Theater Owners has honored him as Director of the Year, as Producer of the Year and as Actor of the Year. He has received The Milestone Award from the Producers Guild.

He has received the Board of Governors Award from the American Society of Cinematographers. He was given the Directors Award from the Costume Designers Guild. He was given the Life Achievement Award from the Publicists Guild. He has received the Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery Award from The Art Directors Guild. He has received the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. He has been honored at numerous film festivals throughout the world. In December 2004, he received The Kennedy Center Honor in Washington, D.C. In 2008, Beatty received the American Film Institute’s highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Politically active since the 1960’s, he campaigned with Robert Kennedy in his 1968 presidential campaign. That same year he traveled throughout the United States speaking in favor of gun control and against the war in Vietnam. In 1972 he took a year off from motion pictures to campaign with George McGovern.

In 1981, he was a founding board member of the Center for National Policy. He is a founding member of The Progressive Majority, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has participated in the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.

He is on the Board of Trustees of The Scripps Research Institute and on the Board of Directors of the Motion Picture and Television Fund Foundation. He has received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award from the Americans for Democratic Action, the Brennan Legacy Award from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, and the Philip Burton Public Service Award from The Foundation For Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.

With his wife, Annette Bening, he received the Caritas Award from the Saint John’s Health Center and the Stem Cell Champions Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

In multiple forums he has addressed campaign finance reform, the increasing disparity of wealth, universal health care and the need for the Democratic Party to return to its roots.

He was born in Richmond, Virginia. He and Annette live in Los Angeles with their four children.