BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Dec. 11 (UPI) -- The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Thursday filmmaker Blake Edwards will receive an Honorary Academy Award.
Edwards -- best known as the writer-director of the "Pink Panther" comedies -- will receive the honorary Oscar at the 76th Academy Awards in Hollywood on Feb. 29.
"For more than 50 years, Edwards has had an extraordinary career writing, directing and producing mainly his own material," said Academy President Frank Pierson. "And that puts him in a select and very small group of outstanding filmmakers."
The son of a production manager and the grandson of a silent screen director, Edwards began in Hollywood as an actor in the 1942 drama "Ten Gentlemen from West Point." He began his writing career in 1948 with the George Montgomery Western "Panhandle" and broke in as a director in 1952 on TV's "Four Star Playhouse."
Although he is best known for comedies -- including "Victor/Victoria" and "10," starring his wife, Julie Andrews -- Edwards also directed the dramatic "Days of Wine and Roses" with Jack Lemon and Lee Remick, and the thriller "Experiment in Terror" with Remick and Glenn Ford.
His only Oscar nomination came for the 1982 screenplay of "Victor/Victoria."
