Music: Quincy Jones

 

An arranger, record producer, performer, film score composer, and television producer, Quincy Jones is one of the most influential musicians of the last century. Uploaded by urbanascore.com.

You could probably win a few bar bets with this question: What individual has the most Grammy Nominations? Yes, the answer is Quincy Jones – with a whopping 79 (and 27 wins, all as a record producer). “Q,” as he’s often called, is not only a record producer but also an arranger, a film composer, and a television producer.

Jones earned a scholarship to a music conservatory in Boston, but dropped out to travel with Lionel Hampton. That experience led to the opportunity to arrange songs for Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Ray Charles. Not long after, director Sidney Lumet chose

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Jones to compose the music for his film The Pawnbroker. It was the first of 33 movies for which he wrote the score. Among his other films are In the Heat of the Night and The Color Purple.

As he turned his attention to record producing, he maintained his high standards. Among the records he produced are “We Are The World,” Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Frank Sinatra’s It Might As Well Be Spring, and Ella Fitzgerald/Count Basie’s Ella and Basie!

In 1995, Jones became the first African-American to win the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award presented at that year’s Academy Awards ceremony.

Actor: Gregory Peck

 

Gregory Peck received four Best Actor nominations during his first five years in films. But it wasn't until almost twenty years later that he won -- for To Kill a Mockingbird. Uploaded by st3.kinpoisk.ru.

Sometimes one role can capsulize an actor’s career, regardless of how many excellent films he makes. For Gregory Peck, that part was Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Great American Things, May 21, 2009). Here, Peck’s integrity was on full display, and he endowed Finch with a strength of character few other actors could have accomplished. The role earned Peck his Academy Award for Best Actor.

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Of course, he had a long and excellent film career which began in 1944 and concluded in 1993. Among his most memorable films:

The Keys of the Kingdom (1944 – Nomination) … Spellbound (1945)… The Yearling (1946 – Nomination) … Duel in the Sun (1946)… Gentleman’s Agreement (1947 – Nomination)… Twelve O’Clock High (1949 – Nomination)… The Gunfighter (1950)… The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)… Roman Holiday (1953)… Moby Dick (1956)… The Guns of Navarone (1961)… Cape Fear (1962)… To Kill a Mockingbird (1962 – Academy Award)… MacArthur (1977)… and The Boys from Brazil (1978).

Among the many honors Peck earned were the Presidential Medal of Freedom (awarded by Lyndon Johnson), the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, the Motion Picture Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and the AFI Life Achievement Award.