By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Carrie Fisher to Present the SAG 51st Life Achievement Award to Debbie Reynolds

Posted Tuesday, January 6th, 2015 - 1 Comment »
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Carrie Fisher to Present the SAG 51st Life Achievement Award to Debbie Reynolds
at the 21st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® on January 25, 2015

LOS ANGELES (Jan 6, 2015) – Carrie Fisher will present the 51st SAG Life Achievement Award to her mother, Debbie Reynolds, at the 21st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®, Executive Producer Kathy Connell announced today. The presentation of the union’s highest accolade will be the centerpiece of the annual Actors® ceremony which will be simulcast live on Sunday, January 25, 2015 on TNT and TBS at 8:00 p.m. (ET) / 5:00 p.m. (PT).

SAG-AFTRA is honoring Debbie Reynolds for her career achievement and humanitarian accomplishments. Past recipients of the Life Achievement Award include Rita Moreno, Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Ernest Borgnine, Betty White, James Earl Jones, Charles Durning, Julie Andrews, Shirley Temple Black, James Garner, Karl Malden, Clint Eastwood, Edward Asner, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, Kirk Douglas, Elizabeth Taylor, Angela Lansbury, Robert Redford and George Burns.

Actor/novelist/screenwriter/performance artist Carrie Fisher is beloved for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the original “Star Wars” trilogy and will reprise the character in upcoming film “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”  She’s worked extensively since the mid 1970’s on an impressive roster of films including “Shampoo,” “The Blues Brothers,” “Under the Rainbow,” “Garbo Talks,” “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “The ‘burbs,” “Loverboy,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “Drop Dead Fred,” “Soapdish,” “Hook,” “Heartbreakers,” “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle,” “Wonderland,” and “The Women,” among others.  Among her numerous telefilm credits are “Leave Yesterday Behind,” “Wright vs. Wrong,” “Frankenstein,” “Liberty” and “Sunday Drive.”  She’s guest-starred in the series “Amazing Stories,” “Sex and the City,” “30 Rock,” “The Big Bang Theory” and others.  She voices Peter Griffin’s boss Angela on the animated sitcom “Family Guy” and was a full-time judge on Fox’s filmmaking competition reality series “On the Lot.”

In 1987, she published her first novel, the bestseller Postcards from the Edge, which was adapted for the screen by Fisher.  She also published the novels Surrender the Pink and Delusions of Grandma. Fisher wrote and performed in her one-woman play “Wishful Drinking” at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, which subsequently toured in select cities throughout the country (2006-2008).  She published her autobiographical book, also titled Wishful Drinking, based on her successful play.

2014 Life Achievement Award recipient Debbie Reynolds is celebrating her 66th year in show business. Star of more than 50 motion pictures, two Broadway shows, two television series, as well as dozens of television, cabaret and concert appearances here and abroad, Reynolds made her official screen debut as June Haver’s younger sister in the 1950 musical “The Daughter of Rosie O’Grady.”  Her noted feature roles include her star-making turn as Kathy Selden in one of greatest screen musicals of all time, “Singin’ in the Rain,” opposite star and co-director Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor; “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” for which she was nominated an Oscar® for her title role performance; “How the West was Won,” which garnered three Oscars and five nominations; “Tammy and the Bachelor,” which included the Oscar-nominated title song “Tammy,” a No. 1 smash hit that earned Reynolds a gold record; “The Tender Trap,” opposite Frank Sinatra; “The Pleasure of His Company,” in which she danced with Fred Astaire; as the title role in the film version of the Broadway hit “Mary, Mary”;  “Goodbye Charlie,” with Tony Curtis and Walter Matthau; “Divorce American Style,” with Dick Van Dyke and Jason Robards; and “How Sweet It Is,” with James Garner. Reynolds worked extensively in drama films as well, beginning with 1956’s “The Catered Affair,” for which she earned a Best Supporting Actress Award from the National Board of Review.  Among her many television roles, Reynolds received a 2000 Primetime Emmy® nomination for her recurring role as Debra Messing’s mother in the hit comedy “Will & Grace” and starred with Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley MacLaine and Joan Collins in the 2001 ABC telefilm “These Old Broads,” co-written by Carrie Fisher.

Since her first nightclub act at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas in 1960, Reynolds has remained busy on the stage.  She’s headlined on the casino circuit in every major city and in her own showroom, the Star Theatre in the Debbie Reynolds Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, which she owned and operated from 1993 to 1998.  She’s starred on Broadway in “Irene,” for which she was nominated for a Tony® Award as well as toured in productions of “Annie Get Your Gun,” “Woman of the Year” and a revival of “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”

In 1987, Reynolds published her first memoir, Debbie: My Life, and in 2013 brought her personal and professional story up to date and shared anecdotes about the making of her extensive filmography in Unsinkable: A Memoir. Reynolds is proud of her two children, daughter Carrie and producer Todd Fisher. Reynolds is devoted to Carrie’s daughter and her granddaughter, Billie Catherine Lourd.

For additional background on Ms. Reynolds, visit sagawards.org/awards/life-achievement-award-recipient/51st.

About the 21st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®
The 21st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® presented by SAG-AFTRA with Screen Actors Guild Awards, LLC will be produced by Avalon Harbor Entertainment, Inc. and will be simulcast live on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015 at 8 p.m. (ET) / 5 p.m. (PT). A primetime encore presentation will follow immediately on TNT. The SAG Awards can also be viewed live on the TNT and TBS websites, and also the Watch TNT and Watch TBS apps for iOS or Android. (Viewers must sign in using their TV service provider user name and password)

Prior to the televised ceremony, honorees for outstanding television and film stunt ensemble action performances will be announced from the red carpet during the SAG Awards Red Carpet Pre-show, which will be webcast live onsagawards.tntdrama.com and People.com beginning at 6 p.m. (ET) / 3 p.m. (PT).

One of the awards season’s premier events, the SAG Awards annually celebrates the outstanding motion picture and television performances from the previous calendar year. Of the top industry honors presented to actors, only the SAG Awards are selected entirely by 111,228 performers’ peers in SAG-AFTRA. The SAG Awards was the first televised awards show to acknowledge the work of union members and the first to present awards to motion picture casts and television ensembles. For more information about the SAG Awards®, SAG-AFTRA, TNT and TBS, visit sagawards.org/about.

Connect with the SAG Awards®
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Website: http://sagawards.org
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Twitter: http://twitter.com/sagawards/
Google +: http://google.com/+SAGawards/
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Tumblr: http://sagawards.tumblr.com
Blog: http://blog.sagawards.org

Screen Actors Guild Awards®, LLC
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Posted in MCN Curated Headlines, Movie City News, Press Releases | 1 Comment »

One Response to “Carrie Fisher to Present the SAG 51st Life Achievement Award to Debbie Reynolds”

  1. Leslie Reynolds says:
    January 11, 2015 at 2:18 pm

    My Aunt Debbie, “Aunt Mary” to me and my siblings, as that is her real name, is an amazing woman. Her brother William, is my dad who is equally amazing. (At least to me). “Debbie” is for certain one of the worlds most talented, beautiful, charismatic, loving and generous people I have ever known and I am blessed to be part of her family! Congratulations to this lovely and inspiring woman! The world is a better place because of her presense in it. Love always, “Mary Francis’ Niece”,… Leslie Reynolds

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon