Bill Murray to receive Maltin Modern Master Award at SBIFF
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- Bill Murray was announced as the Maltin Modern Master Award recipient for this year's Santa Barbara Film Festival on Thursday.
Bill Murray will be honored on April 2 at the 36th annual award event in Santa Barbara.
The film festival says Murray will be honored for his long-standing contributions to the film industry. His most recent role of Felix Keane in Sofia Coppola’s On The Rocks got him nominated for a Golden Globe and Critic’s Choice Award.
Murray is a six-time Golden Globe Award nominee, three-time Screen Actors Guild Award nominee and an Academy Award nominee.
Murray is well known in movies including Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors, the Royal Tennanbaums, Scrooged and many others.
Murray, a comedy and acting icon, began his career in 1975 on the ABC Variety Show Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. One year later, Murray joined the cast of NBC’s long-running and award-winning Saturday Night Live, which then was only in its second season.
“Bill Murray is one of a kind,” says Leonard Maltin. “He developed a comic persona early on that’s still as potent as ever, while expanding his reach and range as an actor. The boyish goofball in Caddyshack has become a playboy dad in On The Rocks, with many dazzling and daring stops along the way. I have been an unabashed fan, from Ghostbusters to Lost In Translation, so it is a privilege and honor to present Bill Murray with this year’s Maltin Modern Master Award.”
The Modern Master Award was established in 1995 and is the highest accolade presented by SBIFF.
The film festival says the award honors an individual who has enriched culture through accomplishments in the motion picture industry. It was renamed the Maltin Modern Master Award in 2015 in honor of long-time SBIFF moderator and renowned film critic Leonard Maltin.
Past recipients Maltin Modern Award winners include Brad Pitt, Glenn Close, Denzel Washington, Michael Keaton, Bruce Dern, Ben Affleck, Christopher Plummer, Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, Clint Eastwood, Cate Blanchett, Will Smith, George Clooney and Peter Jackson.
The 36th Santa Barbara International Film Festival will take place on March 31st through April 10th, 2021.
For more info on the film festival, click here.
