The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) is paying tribute to the work of actress, filmmaker, and comedy icon Elaine May. According to Deadline, the two-time Oscar nominee will receive LAFCA’s Career Achievement Award at the org’s awards dinner on January 11, 2020.
May won a Tony this year for her lead role in Broadway’s “The Waverly Gallery,” a play exploring the effect a matriarch’s quickly-progressing Alzheimer’s has on her family. She received Oscar nods for penning “Heaven Can Wait” and “Primary Colors.” In 2016 she received the Writers Guild of America West’s Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement, and accepted the National Medal of Arts in 2013.
The multi-hyphenate has helmed four feature films — “A New Leaf,” “The Heartbreak Kid,” “Mikey and Nicky,” and “Ishtar” — as well as a 2016 installment of “American Masters” about her frequent collaborator, Mike Nichols. They performed together as a comedy duo in the ’50s and ’60s, and Nichols directed the May-penned “The Birdcage” and “Primary Colors.”
May also acted in “A New Leaf” and “Mikey and Nicky.” Her other screen credits include “Enter Laughing,” “Small Time Crooks,” and “California Suite.”
Earlier this year, Film Forum hosted a May retrospective during its “FAR-OUT IN THE 70s: A New Wave of Comedy, 1969-1979” film series.
