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Robert Altman To Be Honored With An Oscar

Altman Will receive The Prize For His Entire Career

American film director Robert Altman will receive the Honorary Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his career, this award being the first Oscar Altman will win.

In a statement released yesterday, the Academy said it was giving Altman the Oscar to acknowledge "a career that has repeatedly reinvented the art form and inspired filmmakers and audiences alike."

The director will receive the award during the 78th Academy Awards Presentation, which will take place on March 5, 2006 at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland.

"The board was taken with Altman's innovation, his redefinition of genres, his invention of new ways of using the film medium and his reinvigoration of old ones," said Academy President Sid Ganis. "He is a master film maker and well deserves this honor."

In his entire career, Altman received five Academy Award nominations for directing M*A*S*H, Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts and Gosford Park and two additional nominations as a producer of Best Picture nominees Nashville and Gosford Park, but he never won. Altman has directed 86 movies, produced 39 more and written 37 films.

Altman, 80, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of wealthy, insurance man/gambler Bernard Clement Altman (who came from an upper-class German-American family) and Helen Mathews, a Mayflower descendant of English and Scottish ancestry.

In 1950, Altman joined the Calvin Company, the world's largest industrial film production company and 16mm film laboratory, headquartered in Kansas City and, until 1955, Altman directed 60 to 65 industrial short films, usually made to promote a business, a service, or a government function.

In 1955, Altman left the Calvin Company to write and direct a low-budget exploitation film on juvenile crime, titled "The Delinquents", which would become the first feature film ever to be directed by Robert Altman.

"The Delinquents" was no runaway success, but it did catch the eye of Alfred Hitchcock, who was impressed and called up Altman to direct a few episodes of his "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" television series. From 1958 to 1964, Altman directed numerous episodes of numerous TV series including "Combat", "Bonanza", and "Route 66".

In 1969 he was offered the script for "M*A*S*H", which had been previously rejected by several other directors. Altman did direct the film, and it was a huge success, both with critics and at the box office.

Altman's film credits also include "McCabe" and "Mrs. Miller", "The Long Goodbye", "Thieves Like Us", "Popeye" and "Prêt-à-Porter". His current film, "A Prairie Home Companion" is in post-production.