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Actress Lauren Bacall (C) stands onstage with the Honorary Oscar she received in Hollywood, California - Source: Reuters
Hollywood veterans turned out in force to see Lauren Bacall,
grand dame of film noir, receive a honourary Oscar at the motion
picture academy's Governors Awards on Saturday night, away from TV
cameras.
Bacall, 85, starred in more than 30 films but never won an Oscar
from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, coming
closest with a nomination for The Mirror Has Two Faces.
The screen siren earned movie immortality with her husky voice,
sultry gaze and curt retorts in films like Dark Passage, and her
1944 debut opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not
launched one of the most electric on- and off-screen pairings in
cinema history.
She shouted out a whoop on stage when receiving the lifetime
achievement Oscar and thrust it above her head.
"I can't believe it - a man at last," Bacall, who was married to
Bogart from 1945 until his death from cancer in 1957, joked to the
audience.
"The thought that when I get home I'm going to have a two-legged
man in my room is so exciting."
Bacall clearly relished the chance to charm an audience that
included Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda and Warren Beatty with the
same drawling, teasing voice she used with Bogart.
"He gave me a life and he changed my life," she said of the
Hollywood legend.
Saturday's ceremony marked the first time the academy has given its
Governors Awards at a ceremony separate from the gala Oscars, which
will take place in March 2010.
Some industry insiders questioned the academy's decision to hold
the awards banquet on Saturday, but the actors on hand said it was
a relief to be able to speak freely and shed the limitations of
catering to a television audience that numbers tens of millions
worldwide.
Anjelica Huston, whose director father John Huston worked with
Bacall and Bogart, presented her Oscar.
George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks also took part,
along with Kirk Douglas, who revealed how he settled for a 60-year
friendship with Bacall after an early attempt to seduce her fell
flat.
He said Bacall's tough image was all show. "She's a pussycat and
she has a heart of gold," he said.
The Academy also bestowed honorary awards on producer and director
Roger Corman, who gave a start to a string of directors like
Frances Ford Coppola and mesmerized a generation with his quirky,
gory thrillers.
Corman was King of low-budget B movies such as The Cry Baby Killer,
It Conquered the World, The Little Shop of Horrors and The Raven,
where he mixed a comedy element into Edgar Allan Poe's macabre
poem.
"He's been a maverick for a lot longer than I have," risqué
director Quentin Tarantino said after describing to the audience
how he would sit glued as a boy to Corman's movies like The Man
With the X-ray Eyes on late-night TV.
Gordon Willis, who worked on the Godfather trilogy, All The
President's Men and Woody Allen films such as Manhattan and Annie
Hall also received an honorary Oscar.
The Irving G Thalberg Award, named after a pioneering 1920s and 30s
producer, went to John Calley, whose works range from A Clockwork
Orange to the more mainstream Remains of the Day and The Da Vinci
Code.
