Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award

The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award is voted by the Academy's Board of Governors and is presented to "creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production."

It was named in honor of the man who became head of production at the Universal Film Manufacturing Co. at the age of 20 and three years later vice president and head of production for Louis B. Mayer. A year later, Mayer's studio became part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) with Thalberg assuming the position of vice president and supervisor of production. Over the next eight years MGM became Hollywood's most prestigious film studio, with Thalberg personally supervising the studio's top productions. Thalberg died of pneumonia in 1936 at the age of 37. The following year, the Academy instituted the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.

The award is a solid bronze head of Thalberg, resting on a black marble base. It weighs 10 and 3/4 pounds and is nine inches tall. The Thalberg bust in use today (there were two earlier versions) was sculpted by Gualberto Rocchi in 1957 and was first used in 1961 when Stanley Kramer received the award.

The award is not necessarily given each year. Recipients of the Thalberg Award are: