January 25, 2001
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:  Toni Thompson - (310) 247-3090

Beverly Hills, CA - Screenwriter-producer-director Ernest Lehman has been voted an Honorary Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Academy President Robert Rehme announced today. The award is being given to Lehman "in appreciation of a body of varied and enduring work."

"Ernest Lehman has written and produced some of the most memorable films ever made," said Rehme. "He is not only a prolific screenwriter, but an accomplished novelist, journalist and motion picture producer, whose films rank as genuine classics." Lehman has been nominated six times for Academy Awards, four times in the category of Best Screenplay ("Sabrina," "North by Northwest," "West Side Story," and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?") and twice in the category of Best Picture ("Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Hello, Dolly!").

Academy rules state that Honorary Awards, in the form of Oscar statuettes, may be given for "exceptional distinction in the making of motion pictures or for outstanding service to the Academy." Previous recipients include Kirk Douglas, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Sophia Loren, Paul Newman, Stanley Donen and Elia Kazan.

In 1952, fiction writer and journalist Lehman came to Hollywood to become a screenwriter for Paramount Pictures. Once he arrived, he was immediately loaned out to MGM, where he wrote his first screenplay, "Executive Suite," for producer John Houseman and director Robert Wise. For the next few decades, Lehman would collaborate with some of Hollywood's most famous creators, including Alfred Hitchcock on "North by Northwest," Billy Wilder and Samuel Taylor on "Sabrina" and Robert Wise on "The Sound of Music" and "West Side Story." His professional career spans more than forty years and includes screenwriting credits on "The King and I," "Somebody Up There Likes Me," "From the Terrace," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Hello Dolly!."

Lehman's Honorary Award will be presented at the 73rd Academy Awards Presentation on March 25, 2001, at the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium. Sunday at the Oscars^® will be televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. (PST), with a half-hour arrivals segment preceding the presentation ceremony.