Spacey, Goodwin, Aldrin, Delillo Join Roster of Common Wealth Award Laureates
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CONTACT: Mary E. Biddle 302-429-7130 [email protected] Spacey, Goodwin, Aldrin, DeLillo join roster of Common Wealth Award laureates 2009 awardees lauded for their professional and artistic endeavors. WILMINGTON, Del., April 29, 2009 – Four renowned leaders and achievers who have influenced modern society through their work and their accomplishments were honored with the 30th Annual Common Wealth Awards of Distinguished Service. The awards recognize and encourage outstanding achievement worldwide in designated fields of human endeavor. The 2009 Common Wealth Award winners are: • Kevin Spacey, Academy Award-winning actor and artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theatre Company, for Dramatic Arts; • Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, for Mass Communications; • Col. Buzz Aldrin, USAF (Ret.), Sc.D., legendary astronaut and lunar explorer, for Science; • Don DeLillo, preeminent American novelist and a leading figure of postmodern literature, for Literature. The honorees were recognized at the April 25th Common Wealth Awards ceremony, hosted by PNC Bank, Delaware, at the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington. Connie Bond Stuart, president of PNC Bank, Delaware, presented the awards. “The 2009 Common Wealth honorees have risen to prominence through their literary, scientific and artistic endeavors,” said Stuart. “In them we see the power of an individual to contribute, to effect change and to enrich the common good.” The Common Wealth Awards of Distinguished Service were first presented in 1979 by the Common Wealth Trust, created under the will of the late Ralph Hayes, an influential business executive and philanthropist. In their 30-year history, the Common Wealth Awards have conferred $4.6 million in prize money to 169 honorees of international renown. The awards are funded by the Common Wealth Trust. The honorees received a shared prize of $200,000 and a sculpted trophy during the ceremony. – more – World-renowned Achievers Honored with The Common Wealth Awards – Page 2 More than 500 invited guests attended the Common Wealth Awards ceremony, including Delaware’s leaders from the business community, government and elected office, education, the arts and community service. PNC Bank, Delaware has been trustee and administrator for the Common Wealth Awards since their inception. PNC Bank, Delaware is a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC). Ralph Hayes served on the board of directors of PNC Delaware’s predecessor banks from 1935 to 1965. Through the Common Wealth Awards, he sought to recognize outstanding achievement in eight disciplines: dramatic arts, literature, science, invention, mass communications, public service, government, and sociology. The awards also provide an incentive for people to make future contributions to the world community. The roster of past honorees reveals the caliber of talent and the global scope of the awardees and their achievements. Among the past winners are 11 Nobel laureates, including human rights leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former statesman Henry Kissinger and author Toni Morrison. Other winners include former Secretary of State Colin Powell; children’s television icon, the late Fred Rogers; Queen Noor of Jordan; stage and screen director Mike Nichols; primatologist Jane Goodall; ocean explorer Robert Ballard; actress Meryl Streep; television journalists Walter Cronkite and Cokie Roberts; and World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee. 2008 Common Wealth Award Winners Kevin Spacey, esteemed actor and director, has crafted an impressive and eclectic career on stage, screen and television. His film triumphs include his Oscar-winning performances in The Usual Suspects and American Beauty and an Emmy-nominated turn in the television film, Recount. Spacey’s stellar stage work includes Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Iceman Cometh and his Tony Award-winning role in Lost in Yonkers. Since 2003, Spacey has continued his theatrical endeavors as artistic director of London’s famous Old Vic Theatre Company. He received the 2008 Evening Standard Theatre Award for infusing new life into the Old Vic. Doris Kearns Goodwin, world-renowned historian and presidential biographer, has been reporting on politics and baseball for over two decades. Her best-selling books include No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The American Home Front During World War II, which won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for history. Her 2005 book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, was number one on the New York Times best-seller list and won the 2006 Lincoln Prize. Goodwin appears regularly on network television programs and was an on-air consultant for several PBS documentaries, including Ken Burns’ The History of Baseball. - more - World-renowned Achievers Honored with The Common Wealth Awards – Page 3 Buzz Aldrin, heroic pioneer of American space exploration, was selected by NASA in 1963 into the third group of astronauts. In 1966, on the Gemini 12 orbital mission, he performed the world’s first successful spacewalk. Then, on July 20, 1969, Aldrin and Neil Armstrong made their historic Apollo 11 moonwalk, becoming the first two humans to set foot on another world. Aldrin devised the docking and rendezvous techniques for spacecraft in Earth and lunar orbit, which are still used today. His many awards and honors include the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross. Don DeLillo has distinguished himself as one of America’s most influential and original postmodern writers. He is the author of 14 novels, including White Noise, Libra and Falling Man and three stage plays. His 1997 epic, Underworld--possibly the most acclaimed book of the decade--is widely considered his masterpiece. DeLillo’s stories explore the history, politics and paranoia of American life in the late 20th and 21st centuries. His works have gained literary stature and international popularity, garnering many awards including the National Book Award, the Jerusalem Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Howells Medal. # # # Kevin Spacey Two-time Oscar winner, Kevin Spacey, is acclaimed as both an actor and director. He receives the 2009 Common Wealth Award for Dramatic Arts. Spacey is artistic director of The Old Vic Theatre Company. He directed its inaugural production Cloaca, before appearing in National Anthems, The Philadelphia Story, Richard II, A Moon for the Misbegotten, which subsequently transferred to Broadway, and most recently, Speed-the-Plow, with Jeff Goldblum, directed by Matthew Warchus. Previous theatre includes The Iceman Cometh (Evening Standard and Olivier Awards for Best Actor) directed by Howard Davies (Almeida, Old Vic and Broadway); Lost in Yonkers (Tony Award, Best Supporting Actor); Long Day’s Journey into Night, with Jack Lemmon, directed by Jonathan Miller (Broadway and West End) and The Seagull (Kennedy Center). Films include Superman Returns, Beyond the Sea (director and actor), The Usual Suspects (Academy Award, Best Supporting Actor), American Beauty (Academy and BAFTA Awards, Best Actor), Swimming with Sharks, Se7en, LA Confidential, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Negotiator, Hurlyburly, K-Pax and The Shipping News. Spacey’s production company Trigger Street has produced the films The United States of Leland, The Big Kahuna, 21 for Sony Pictures, Bernard And Doris, starring Ralph Fiennes and Susan Sarandon, which was nominated for 10 Emmy Awards and three Golden Globes. Their current feature, Fanboys, was released in February 2009. His latest film, Shrink, with Robin Williams, premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. In addition he will be seen in Nick Moran’s film Telstar opposite Colm O’Neil and Pam Ferris, which debuted at the London Film Festival. He was most recently nominated for an Emmy and Golden Globe Award as Best Actor for his performance as Ron Klain in Recount, a co-production between Trigger Street and HBO, a behind-the- scenes account of the 36-day battle for the presidency in 2000 between Bush and Gore, which won the Emmy for Best Film of the Year. Spacey is currently Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University. He was recently honored with a special Evening Standard Theatre Award for bringing new life to the Old Vic. Spacey was born July 26, 1959 in South Orange, New Jersey. Doris Kearns Goodwin Doris Kearns Goodwin, world-renowned historian and presidential biographer, receives the 2009 Common Wealth Award for Mass Communications. Goodwin has been reporting on politics and baseball for over two decades. She is the author of several books and has written for leading national publications. She appears regularly on network television programs and was an on-air consultant for PBS documentaries on Lyndon B. Johnson, the Kennedy Family, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ken Burns’ The History of Baseball. She was the first female journalist to enter the Red Sox locker room. Goodwin was born January 4, 1943 and was raised on Long Island, New York. She received her B.A. from Colby College, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. While at Colby, she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the international honor society. She received her Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University, where she taught Government including a course on the American Presidency. Following her tenure at Harvard, Goodwin served as an assistant to Lyndon Johnson in his last year in the White House. She later assisted Johnson in the preparation of his memoirs. In 1976, Goodwin authored Lyndon Johnson & The American Dream, which became a New York Times best seller. She followed up in 1987 with the political biography, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, which stayed on the New York Times Best-Seller List for five months. In 1990, it was made into a six- hour ABC miniseries. Her next book, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The American Home Front During World War II, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in April 1995, as well as the Harold Washington Literary Award, the New England Bookseller Association Award, the Ambassador Book Award, and the Washington Monthly Book Award. It was a New York Times best seller for six months.