Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, who co-starred in the Broadway musical version of Mel Brooks' The Producers, presented the veteran filmmaker with an Honorary Oscar January 9 at the 14th Governors Awards at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood.
The Honorary Award, an Oscar statuette, is given “to honor extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences, or for outstanding service to the Academy.”
Watch Lane and Broderick introduce EGOT winner Brooks in the video above, and watch Brooks receive his award in the video below. In his acceptance speech Brooks joked, "I won't sell this [Oscar], I swear to God!"
At the ceremony, Honorary Awards were also presented to Angela Bassett and editor Carol Littleton, and the Jean
Hersholt Humanitarian Award was given to the Sundance Institute’s Michelle Satter.
Brooks won his first Oscar in 1964 for writing and narrating the animated short The Critic and his second for the screenplay of his first feature film, The Producers, in 1968. Many hit comedies followed, including Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs, and Dracula: Dead and Loving It.
He received three 2001 Tony Awards for The Producers, which ran on Broadway from 2001 to 2006. The stage adaptation of his movie holds the record for the most Tonys ever won by a Broadway production. He followed that success with Young Frankenstein, which ran on Broadway from 2007 to 2009 and opened in London’s West End in fall 2017. In 2009, Brooks received a Kennedy Center Honor, and in 2013 he was the 41st recipient of the AFI’s Life Achievement Award. In 2016, President Obama presented him with The National Medal of Arts.
