SAG To Honor Durning For Lifetime Achievement
Actor To Be Honored For Acting, Humanitarianism
POSTED: Monday, September 24, 2007
  SAG Image Charles Durning |
Veteran actor Charles Durning will be awarded with the Screen Actors Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award at the guild's upcoming ceremony in January, the organization announced Monday.Durning, 84, will receive the award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment, which is given annually to an actor who fosters the "finest ideals of the acting profession," SAG said in a statement."Charles Durning is the perfect choice for the Life Achievement Award as Screen Actors Guild celebrates its 75th anniversary," SAG president Alan Rosenberg said. "Throughout his career, he has epitomized the art and grace of acting and brought something special to every role. He is above all things a great actor with the talent to which we all aspire: the power to create indelible characters."Over his 50-year career, During has starred in such films as "Tootsie," "The Sting," "Dog Day Afternoon," "The Muppet Movie," "North Dallas Forty," "The Hudsucker Proxy" and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"Durning has been honored with two Oscar nominations, first in 1983 for his musical turn as the tap-dancing Texas governor in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" and again in 1984 for his lecherous Nazi Colonel Erhardt in the Brooksfilm remake of Ernst Lubitsch's "To Be or Not To Be."The actor has also been nominated for eight Emmy Awards, and has starred in such shows as "Evening Shade," "Everybody Loves Raymond" and most recently, "Rescue Me."Born Feb. 28, 1923, in Highland Falls, N.Y., Durning also served in the military during World War II, and was in first wave to land on Omaha Beach during the D-Day Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944. SAG noted that during the battle, Durning killed seven German gunners and suffered serious machine gun wounds to his right leg and shrapnel wounds over his body in that bloody battle -- and was later stabbed eight times with a bayonet by a young German soldier, whom he killed with a rock in hand-to-hand combat.Durning was also taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge, he was one of a few survivors of the infamous attack on American POWs at Malmedy, Belgium, and was the sole survivor of 40 men who took out a German machine gun nest.Durning was awarded three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star for his valor.According to SAG, Durning did not speak publicly about his war experiences until the 50th anniversary of D-Day, when it was suggested by Durning's "Evening Shade" co-star Ossie Davis (SAG's 2000 Life Achievement Award recipient) that he appear in the National Memorial Day Concert, which Davis was hosting.Durning will be presented the guild honor at the 14th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, set for Jan. 27 in Los Angeles.
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