Sigourney Weaver is your runaway choice to receive the 2023 American Film Institute life achievement award. The star of “Aliens,” “Gorillas in the Mist,” “Working Girl” and “Ghostbusters” was voted by 42.98% in our recent poll asking which actress is the most deserving. Glenn Close finished in second place with 15.33%, followed by Nicole Kidman with 9.29%. Separate polls about actors and directors will be published soon.
Starting in the early 1970s, the AFI starting choosing actors, actresses and directors with recipients being director John Ford (1973), actor James Cagney (1974), director/actor Orson Welles (1975), director William Wyler (1976), actress Bette Davis (1977), actor Henry Fonda (1978) and director Alfred Hitchcock (1979).
Past recipients still living (and therefore not eligible again) are: actor Jack Nicholson (1994), director Steven Spielberg (1995), actor/director Clint Eastwood (1996), director Martin Scorsese (1997), actor Dustin Hoffman (1999), actor Harrison Ford (2000), actress/director Barbra Streisand (2001), actor/director Tom Hanks (2002), actor Robert De Niro (2003), actress Meryl Streep (2004), director George Lucas (2005), actor Al Pacino (2007), actor/director Warren Beatty (2008), actor/producer Michael Douglas (2009), actor Morgan Freeman (2011), actress Shirley MacLaine (2012), director/actor Mel Brooks (2013), actress Jane Fonda (2014), actor/writer Steve Martin (2015), composer John Williams (2016), actress Diane Keaton (2017), actor/director George Clooney (2018), actor/director Denzel Washington (2019) and actress Julie Andrews (2022).
Other than Spielberg and Hanks, who were 49 and 46 respectively when they were honored, everybody else has been at least in their mid 50s. For our ladies’ poll, we set the minimum age as 50.
After our top three listed above, the following women had these vote tallies: Annette Bening (6.26%), Jessica Lange (5.62%), Sally Field (5.40%), Jodie Foster (4.75%), Sandra Bullock (2.59%), Frances McDormand (2.59%), Helen Mirren (2.16%), Julia Roberts (1.94%) and Viola Davis (1.08%).
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