Orson Welles - Awards and Honors

Awards and Honors

The American Film Institute ranked Citizen Kane as the greatest American movie. These other Welles films were nominated for their list: The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, director/producer/screenwriter); The Third Man (1949, actor); Touch of Evil (1958, actor/director/screenwriter); and A Man for All Seasons (1966, actor).
Citizen Kane was nominated for numerous prizes at the 1941 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role. The only Oscar won, however, was Best Original Screenplay, which Welles shared with Herman J. Mankiewicz.
The Magnificent Ambersons was nominated for four 1942 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
The Stranger was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1947.
Othello won the Palme d'Or at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival.
In 1968 Welles was nominated for Best Foreign Actor in a Leading Role at the 21st British Academy Film Awards for his performance in Chimes at Midnight.
Welles was given the first Career Golden Lion award in the Venice Film Festival in 1970.
In 1970, Welles was given an Academy Honorary Award for "superlative and distinguished service in the making of motion pictures." Welles did not attend the ceremony: "I didn't go because I feel like a damn fool at those things. I feel foolish, really foolish. ... I made piece of film and said that I was in Spain, and thanked them."
Welles was given the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award in 1975.
In 1978, Welles was presented with the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Career Achievement Award.
In 1979, Welles was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.
In Paris on February 23, 1982, President François Mitterrand presented Welles with the Order of Commander of the Légion d'honneur, the highest civilian decoration in France.
In 1982, Welles was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture at the Golden Globe Awards for his role in Butterfly, and won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for his role on Donovan's Brain.
In 1983, Welles was made a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
Welles was awarded a Fellowship of the British Film Institute in 1983.
In 1984, Welles was given the Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award.
The 1992 audiobook version of This is Orson Welles by Welles and Peter Bogdanovich was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album.
In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Welles as the 16th Greatest Male Star of All Time.
When asked to describe Welles's influence, Jean-Luc Godard remarked: "Everyone will always owe him everything." (Ciment, 42)
A highly divergent genus of Hawaiian spiders "Orsonwelles" is named in his honor (Hormiga et al. 2003)
He won three Grammy Awards, each win in the category of Best Spoken Word Recording: in 1976, for "Great American Documents" (shared with Helen Hayes, Henry Fonda and James Earl Jones; in 1978, for the original motion picture soundtrack to Citizen Kane; and in 1981, for a recording of Donovan's Brain.
In 2008 a statue of Welles sculpted by Oja Kodar was erected in the town of Split, Croatia.
In November 2012 the Woodstock Opera House announced plans to dedicate its stage to Welles in a ceremony tentatively scheduled for February 2013.