Bruce Cohen to Produce Academy Governors Awards Gala

Beverly Hills, CA — Producer Bruce Cohen has been tapped to produce the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ inaugural Governors Awards event on Saturday, November 14, 2009, at the Governors Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center. As announced in June, it will be on this evening that one or more of the Academy’s highest honors – the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Honorary Award – will be presented.

“I’m thrilled to be a part of this new event celebrating this year’s recipients of the most prestigious awards in the industry,” said Cohen. “I want the evening to be an elegant, legendary night that the honorees and attendees alike will remember and cherish.”

Cohen won a Best Picture Oscar® for producing “American Beauty” (1999) and was nominated in the same category in 2008 for “Milk,” both with his producing partner Dan Jinks. Their other producing credits include “Down with Love,” “Big Fish,” “The Forgotten,” “The Nines,” and television’s “Pushing Daisies.”

Cohen also served as executive producer of “Movies Rock,” a 2007 live televised concert that focused on music’s influence on movies.

The Academy’s Board of Governors will select the 2009 honorees for the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and/or the Honorary Award at a meeting in September.

There will not be more than one Hersholt nor more than one Thalberg Award voted in any given year. No more than four Governors Awards will be given in a single year.

The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Honorary Award are Oscar statuettes; the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award is a bust of its namesake. The most recent recipients of each were Jerry Lewis (Hersholt Award) at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony in February of this year, Robert Boyle (Honorary Award) at the 80th Academy Awards ceremony in February 2008, and Dino De Laurentiis (Thalberg Award) at the 73rd Academy Awards ceremony in March 2001.