George Stevens, Jr.
George Stevens, Jr. has achieved an extraordinary creative legacy over a career spanning almost 50 years. He is a writer, director, producer, playwright and author. He has enriched the film and television arts as a filmmaker and is widely credited with bringing style and taste to the national television events he has conceived, including The Kennedy Center Honors, which took place for the 36th time in 2013. As a writer, director and producer, Stevens has earned many accolades, including 17 mys, two Peabody Awards for Meritorious Service to Broadcasting, the Humanitas Prize and 8 awards from the Writers Guild of America, including the Paul Selvin Award for writing that bodies civil rights and liberties. In 2012 the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted to present Stevens with an Honorary Academy Award for “extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement.” Stevens serves as Co-chairman of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities following his appointment by President Obama in 2009. Stevens is founder of the American Film Institute and during his tenure, more than 10,000 irreplaceable American films were preserved and catalogued to be enjoyed by future generations. In addition, he established the AFI’s Center for Advanced Film Studies, which gained a reputation as the finest learning opportunity for young filmmakers. Stevens made his debut as a playwright in 2008 with Thurgood, which opened at the historic Booth Theater on Broadway. The play had an extended run starring Laurence Fishburne as supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Fishburne received a Tony nomination and returned to the role in the summer of 2010 with runs at the Kennedy Center and the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. Thurgood was filmed while at the Kennedy Center and shown on HBO in 2011. Stevens was executive producer of The Thin Red Line, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He co-wrote and produced The Murder of Mary Phagan, starring Jack L mon, which received the my for Outstanding Mini-Series. He wrote and directed Separate But Equal starring Sidney Poitier and Burt Lancaster which also won the my for Outstanding Mini-Series. Stevens won two mys for the 1994 documentary, George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin, which depicted the wartime experiences of his father – one of the most highly regarded directors of all time. He produced an acclaimed feature length film about his father, George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey. In 2006, Alfred A. Knopf published Stevens’ Conversations with the Great Movi akers of Hollywood’s Golden Age – the first book to bring together the interviews of master movi akers from the American Film Institute’s renowned Harold Lloyd Master seminar Series. Conversations with the Great Movi akers – The Next Generation was released by Knopf in April, 2012. Stevens, in collaboration with his son and partner Michael Stevens, recently completed a feature length documentary Herblock – The Black The White on the famed political cartoonist Herbert Block. Current as of August 2014