Ennio Morricone to Receive Honorary Academy Award
Beverly Hills, CA - Composer-conductor Ennio Morricone, who has composed more than 300 motion picture scores over a 45-year career, has been voted an Honorary Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The Award, an Oscar statuette, will be given to Morricone at the 79th Academy Awards presentation on February 25, 2007, "for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music."
Morricone has earned five Academy Award nominations for original score - for "Days of Heaven" (1978), "The Mission" (1986), "The Untouchables" (1987), "Bugsy" (1991) and "Malhna" (2000) - but has not previously received an Oscar.
"The board was responding not just to the remarkable number of scores that Mr. Morricone has produced," said Academy President Sid Ganis, "but to the fact that so many of them are beloved and popular masterpieces."
While the bulk of his work has been on Italian films, including "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," "Once upon a Time in America" and "Cinema Paradiso," Morricone has composed memorable scores for such international titles as "Bulworth," "In the Line of Fire," "La Cage aux Folles" and "Two Mules for Sister Sara." His current project, "Leningrad," has been announced for a 2008 release.
Born in Rome, Morricone was hired in 1964 by Sergio Leone and began a long collaboration with the director on what came to be known as "spaghetti westerns," though his career has spanned most film genres from comedy to romance to horror.
Morricone's Honorary Oscar will be presented, along with other Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2006, on Sunday, February 25, 2007 at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center. The Oscars will be televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. PST (8 p.m. EST), with a half-hour red carpet arrivals segment, "The Road to the Oscars."
