AARP The Magazine announced that Annette Bening will receive the 2019 Movies for Grownups Career Achievement Award. Bening – a recipient of two Golden Globes®, a Screen Actors Guild Award® and four-time Academy Award®-nominee – will be honored at the 19th annual Movies for Grownups® (MFG) Awards ceremony on January 11, 2020, in Beverly Hills.
For nearly two decades, AARP’s MFG program has championed movies for grownups, by grownups, by advocating for the 50-plus audience, fighting industry ageism and encouraging films that resonate with older viewers.
“Annette Bening has captured our hearts and entertained us for years with her performances,” said Myrna Blyth, Senior Vice President and Editorial Director for AARP Media. “We are thrilled to award Annette with our highest honor and recognize a remarkable career.”
Bening will receive Movies for Grownups’ highest honor at the awards ceremony, which will also include recognition for 2019’s best films and filmmakers, including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and more.
Bening said, “I’m really honored that the AARP has selected me. Especially since there are so many people that they could have recognized. These awards acknowledge the kinds of movies we need and don’t get enough of. In that way, the awards are advocates for good moviemaking, for meaningful moviemaking. And to be a part of this is very gratifying.”
She joins a prestigious list of previous AARP Movies for Grownups Career Achievement honorees including Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Shirley MacLaine, Helen Mirren, Robert Redford, Susan Sarandon, and Sharon Stone.
Annette Bening began as a leading light of the American stage, stunning her teachers at the American Conservatory Theatre and going on to earn the Drama Desk and Clarence Derwent Awards as well as two Tony Award nominations for Coastal Disturbances in 1987 and for All My Sons in 2019. Bening broke out as a movie star at age 33, earning the first of her four Oscar nominations for Best Actress in landmark films in The Grifters, followed by American Beauty, Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right. Many pundits predict a fifth Oscar nomination for Bening’s 2019 movie The Report. Throughout a career that spans several decades, Bening often chose fearlessly artistic, challenging or noncommercial roles. She’s also given grownup gravitas to the superhero genre, playing a character called Supreme Intelligence in Captain Marvel. Her films have grossed more than $2 billion and had a resonant impact on our culture. A remarkable number of her honors arrived after age 50: her seventh and eighth Golden Globe® Best Actress nominations (and second win), two nominations each for Critics’ Choice, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, Gotham Film Independent Spirit Awards and three Movies for Grownups® Awards. She brilliantly portrayed cult actress Gloria Grahame in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, one of many outsider characters she’s immortalized, and Bening has inspired a cult of her own.
The Awards ceremony will be broadcast for the third consecutive year on Sunday, January 19, 2020, at 6 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), pbs.org/gperf and the PBS Video App. The Awards are co-produced by Great Performances and AARP Studios.
“One of the highlights of the Movies for Grownups Awards each year is the presentation of the Career Achievement Award,” said Great Performances Executive Producer David Horn. “We are thrilled to again be presenting this unique program to PBS audiences and to join in honoring Annette Bening’s notable career.”
Consumer Cellular is proud to be the presenting sponsor for the Movies for Grownups Awards. Event proceeds benefit AARP Foundation, which works to end senior poverty by helping vulnerable older adults — in Los Angeles and across the country — build economic opportunity and social connectedness.
About Great Performances:
Great Performances is produced by THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC for WNET. Throughout its more than 40-year history on public television, Great Performances has provided viewers across the country with an unparalleled showcase of the best in all genres of the performing arts, serving as America’s most prestigious and enduring broadcaster of cultural programming.
About Movies for Grownups:
AARP’s Movies for Grownups advocates for the 50-plus audience by fighting ageism in the entertainment industry and encouraging films that resonate with older viewers. With weekly news and reviews, nationwide screenings and an annual awards event, AARP champions movies for grownups, by grownups. For more information go to www.aarp.org/moviesforgrownups.