Orson Welles - Awards and Honors

Awards and Honors

• The American Film Institute ranked Citizen Kane as the greatest American movie. These other Welles films were nominated for their list: The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, director/producer/screenwriter); The Third Man (1949, actor); Touch of Evil (1958, actor/director/screenwriter); and A Man for All Seasons (1966, actor).
• Citizen Kane was nominated for numerous prizes at the 1941 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role. The only Oscar won, however, was Best Original Screenplay, which Welles shared with Herman J. Mankiewicz.
• The Magnificent Ambersons was nominated for four 1942 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
• The Stranger was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1947.
• Othello won the Palme d'Or at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival.
• In 1968 Welles was nominated for Best Foreign Actor in a Leading Role at the 21st British Academy Film Awards for his performance in Chimes at Midnight.
• Welles was given the first Career Golden Lion award in the Venice Film Festival in 1970.
• In 1970, Welles was given an Academy Honorary Award for "superlative and distinguished service in the making of motion pictures." Welles did not attend the ceremony: "I didn't go because I feel like a damn fool at those things. I feel foolish, really foolish. ... I made piece of film and said that I was in Spain, and thanked them."
• Welles was given the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award in 1975.
• In 1978, Welles was presented with the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Career Achievement Award.
• In 1979, Welles was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.
• In Paris on February 23, 1982, President François Mitterrand presented Welles with the Order of Commander of the Légion d'honneur, the highest civilian decoration in France.
• In 1982, Welles was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture at the Golden Globe Awards for his role in Butterfly, and won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for his role on Donovan's Brain.
• In 1983, Welles was made a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
• Welles was awarded a Fellowship of the British Film Institute in 1983.
• In 1984, Welles was given the Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award.
• The 1992 audiobook version of This is Orson Welles by Welles and Peter Bogdanovich was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album.
• In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Welles as the 16th Greatest Male Star of All Time.
• When asked to describe Welles's influence, Jean-Luc Godard remarked: "Everyone will always owe him everything." (Ciment, 42)
• A highly divergent genus of Hawaiian spiders "Orsonwelles" is named in his honor (Hormiga et al. 2003)
• He won three Grammy Awards, each win in the category of Best Spoken Word Recording: in 1976, for "Great American Documents" (shared with Helen Hayes, Henry Fonda and James Earl Jones; in 1978, for the original motion picture soundtrack to Citizen Kane; and in 1981, for a recording of Donovan's Brain.
• In 2008 a statue of Welles sculpted by Oja Kodar was erected in the town of Split, Croatia.
• In November 2012 the Woodstock Opera House announced plans to dedicate its stage to Welles in a ceremony tentatively scheduled for February 2013.