Glenn Close has been nominated for an Academy Award eight times and has never taken one home. On Sunday, November 15, she finally gets an Oscar statuette: the Academy’s Board of Governors voted to give her an Honorary Award, which will be presented at the 17th Governors Awards in the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood in Los Angeles.
She shares the night with animator Floyd Norman and director Ridley Scott, who also receive Honorary Awards, and with producers Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler of Killer Films, who receive the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
Academy President Lynette Howell Taylor said in the announcement that Close’s “unparalleled emotional range has brought to life some of the most complex characters in cinema.”
Eight nominations, 38 years apart
Close’s Oscar story began with her first film. Here is the full list of her nominations:
- The World According to Garp (1982), supporting actress
- The Big Chill (1983), supporting actress
- The Natural (1984), supporting actress
- Fatal Attraction (1987), lead actress
- Dangerous Liaisons (1988), lead actress
- Albert Nobbs (2011), lead actress
- The Wife (2018), lead actress
- Hillbilly Elegy (2020), supporting actress
That is three nominations in a row in her first three years in movies, and a span of 38 years between the first and the last. The Wife came closest: she was widely tipped to win Best Actress for it, and lost to Olivia Colman for The Favourite. After that seventh nomination she became the most nominated actress never to win.
Close, now 79, has three Tony Awards and three Primetime Emmy Awards. She once argued that being one of five nominees out of an entire profession was nothing to be glum about. Her other screen credits listed by the Academy run from Jagged Edge and Air Force One to 101 Dalmatians and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.
What the Governors Awards are
The Honorary Award, the Thalberg Award and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award used to be handed out during the main Oscars broadcast. Since 2009 they have had their own smaller dinner, which is not televised; the Academy posts most of the speeches online afterward. Honorees are chosen by the Board of Governors rather than voted on by the membership, and the evening has become the first big red-carpet stop of awards season.
Last year’s ceremony gave the Hersholt award to Dolly Parton, alongside Honorary Awards for Debbie Allen, Tom Cruise and Wynn Thomas; we looked back at one of her biggest songs in our story on I Will Always Love You reaching No. 1 twice.
The other honorees
Floyd Norman started at Walt Disney Animation Studios in 1956 as the studio’s first Black animator, 70 years ago, and worked on Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book, Mulan, Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. across a 65-year career.
Ridley Scott, made a Knight Grand Cross in 2024, has been nominated for directing Thelma & Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, and for Best Picture for The Martian. His 1982 Blade Runner still casts a long shadow, as the trailer in our story on Blade Runner 2099’s final trailer shows. His next feature is The Dog Stars.
Vachon and Koffler founded Killer Films in New York in 1995. Their slate runs from Boys Don’t Cry and Carol to Past Lives, which earned them a Best Picture nomination in 2024.
The statuettes are handed out on Sunday, November 15. The 99th Academy Awards follow in the spring.
Further reading
Image: Lorn Spolter, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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