The annual Governor’s Awards, the place honorary awards are introduced by The Academy of Movement Image Arts & Sciences, are normally a celebration. This 12 months’s fifteenth version was a cheerful event too, but it surely was muted by the truth that one of many honorees, Quincy Jones, died on Nov. 3, simply two weeks earlier than the awards had been introduced on Sunday, Nov. 17, on the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood.
Jones’ daughter, actress Rashida Jones, spoke for the household in accepting the award. “In some methods it was a tough resolution for our household to be right here tonight however we felt like we wished to have a good time his stunning life and profession,” she mentioned. “His music has actually outlined a complete century of tradition – jazz, disco, movie, pop, hip-hop, however the actual thread in his music is that his music is all infused together with his love.”
This 12 months’s different honorees, voted on by the Academy’s board of governors and introduced in June, had been casting director Juliet Taylor; filmmaker and philanthropist Richard Curtis (the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award); and producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, finest identified for the James Bond franchise (the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award).
Jones’ award was introduced “for his creative genius, relentless creativity and trailblazing legacy in movie music.” Curtis was honored “for his extraordinary charitable work that has remodeled lives world wide.” Taylor was cited “for her expansive physique of labor and indelible affect on the sector of movie casting.” Wilson and Broccoli had been honored “for his or her persistently top quality, excessive affect movement image manufacturing.”
The occasion was produced by Jennifer Fox for the sixth 12 months in a row. Rickey Minor was music director.
Listed here are eight highlights from the 2024 Governor’s Awards.
Jennifer Hudson Takes Us to Church
Jennifer Hudson led a 12-member gospel choir on a rousing model of “Possibly God Is Tryin’ to Inform You One thing’,” a music from the 1985 movie The Coloration Purple, for which Jones obtained three of his seven profession Oscar nominations. Left unsaid was that Hudson’s profession and EGOT standing could be unimaginable with out Jones’ trailblazing efforts earlier than she was even born.
(Hudson carried out Lesley Gore’s Jones-produced hit “You Don’t Personal Me” at a ninetieth birthday live performance for Jones on the Hollywood Bowl in July 2023.)
Jamie Foxx Advised How Jones Helped Him Play Ray Charles
After Jamie Foxx was forged to play Ray Charles within the 2004 biopic Ray, he known as Jones, who had been pals with Charles since they had been youngsters, to see if he may present any pointers. Jones invited him to his home and dug by way of containers to discover a cassette of a classic Charles efficiency – which Foxx discovered useful as soon as he was capable of find a cassette participant. Foxx received an Oscar for his portrayal.
A Daughter’s Tribute
Rashida Jones mentioned “Our father handed away two weeks in the past in the present day. 4 of the seven of [Jones’ children] are right here and our stunning household within the viewers and he has so many pals on this room – nicely, really most likely in each room if I’m being sincere as a result of wherever he went he made connections with everybody. He had this pure reward with folks. He knew methods to keep current, keep curious and keep loving.”
Jones additionally urged folks within the viewers to discover Jones’ music, and never simply the well-known movie scores and triumphs with Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra.
“There’s a complete universe ready in his seven many years of music and whilst you pay attention, hear how he imbued love into each single second of music he made. That was his actual legacy. He beloved life. He usually mentioned ‘Stay each day prefer it’s your final and at some point you’ll be proper.’”
In Jones’ Personal Phrases
Rashida Jones mentioned her father “actually, actually, actually meant on being right here with us tonight.” She added the “he final month we have now been engaged on a speech. And so right here it’s in its personal phrases.”
The spotlight of Quincy Jones’ remarks was this look again at how a lot the movie trade has modified. “We’ve come a good distance in our trade. Once I was a younger movie composer you didn’t even see faces of coloration working within the studio system. I’m so, so happy with the truth that my title and contributions might be included in that evolution in the present day. I’m past grateful to compose greater than 35 scores.”
Proof of Q’s Enduring Affect
Even earlier than this system started, there was proof of Jones’ enduring affect. Over the audio system we heard such pop hits as Janet Jackson’s “Once I Consider You” and Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know.” Jones didn’t produce both of these information – Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis produced Jackson’s smash; Narada Michael Walden produced Houston’s – however they’d be the primary to acknowledge how a lot they had been influenced by Q’s sound and elegance on these hits.
Richard Curtis Invokes a Hit by Queen & David Bowie
It took an Englishman, Richard Curtis, to be the primary one to touch upon the latest U.S. presidential election. “It’s been a really unusual fortnight,” he mentioned. “To everybody who’s been unhappy,” he provided a music in line with the present temper – Queen and David Bowie’s 1981 hit “Below Strain.” He steered that he was a superb one to recommend a music as a result of his films are “so usually glued collectively by pop songs.”
Prospering within the Household Enterprise
Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli obtained the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, 43 years after their father, Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, obtained the distinction. The offspring have saved the James Bond franchise alive and related in a a lot completely different time than when the franchise first launched in 1962. All three of the Bond songs to win Oscars for finest unique music – Adele’s “Skyfall,” Sam Smith‘s “Writing’s on the Wall” and Billie Eilish‘s “No Time to Die” – have come beneath Wilson and Broccoli’s watch. Daniel Craig, who has starred within the final 5 Bond movies, introduced the award to Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
Tweaking the Governor’s Awards
Richard Curtis and one in all his high stars, Hugh Grant, who displayed a mock prickly relationship, had a little bit enjoyable with the Governor’s Awards and whether or not they need to or shouldn’t rely as an Oscar.
Grant, who turned a global star within the 1994 movie 4 Weddings and a Funeral, which Curtis wrote, and had one other massive hit within the 2003 ensemble piece Love Truly, which Curtis each wrote and directed, mentioned “Would we name it an Oscar? It’s sort of an Oscar. It’s a better-than-nothing Oscar.”
Curtis roughly agreed when he accepted his award. “It’s the Oscar for individuals who by no means made a movie adequate to win an Oscar.”
