Julie Andrews Receives AFI Life Achievement Award In Evening That Was Pretty ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’
deadline.com“Welcome to the 48th, 49th, and 50th AFI Life Achievement Awards,” American Film Institute President and CEO Bob Gazzale stated as he began his welcoming remarks for Thursday night’s long awaited and long pandemic- delayed tribute to Julie Andrews, the 2022 honoree at a ceremony originally set to take place in the spring of 2020 that now finally happened with all style and warmth so familiar to these AFI evenings ever since AFI founder George Stevens Jr.
came up with the idea in 1973 when director John Ford was the first honoree (Stevens, now 90, was there and acknowledged from the stage last night).
Since then there has never been a “gap” between cereomonies but now there is between 2019 honoree Denzel Washington and Andrews, but it was well worth the wait, and congratulations to the AFI, Board Trustees Chairs Kathleen Kennedy and Bob Daly as well as Gazzale (who is also Executive Producer of the show which will air on TNT June 16 at 10pm) for not letting Covid diminish the event, even if it had to come a little later than usual,and every member of the audience at the Dolby Theatre (transformed into a banquet setting for the elegant dinner) had to take a PCR test at least 48 hours before entering the building.
Other than that it was just like old times and you could tell the industry crowd was thrilled to be there for a genuine show business legend.
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