17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards Watched By 5 Million Viewers

TNT and TBS Simulcast of the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®
Watched by 5 Million Viewers, with Strong Growth Across the Board

LOS ANGELES (February 1, 2011) — More than 5 million viewers tuned in Sunday night as TNT and TBS presented the live simulcast of the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®.  This year’s star-studded simulcast ranked as basic cable’s #1 show on Sunday and posted solid 6% growth over last year in total audience.  The two-hour ceremony also scored strong gains among key adult demos compared to last year.
 
17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards Ratings Highlights:

•    TNT and TBS combined to deliver 5,005,000 viewers, a 6% boost over last year.  Individually, TNT averaged 2,820,000 viewers for Sunday night’s simulcast, while TBS delivered 2,185,000 viewers, both up 6% over last year.

•    The combined TNT and TBS demo deliveries for the simulcast scored strong gains compared to last year’s simulcast:
•    Adults 18-34: 1,163,000 (+30%)
•    Adults 18-49: 2,181,000 (+13%)
•    Adults 25-54: 2,238,000 (+8%)

•    Individually, both networks delivered growth in their respective key demos.  TNT averaged 1.2 million adults 18-49, up 25%, and 1.3 million adults 25-54, up 18%.  TBS averaged 542,000 adults 18-34, up 11%, while its delivery of adults 18-49 (934,000) was up slightly.

The SAG Awards® also proved to be a hit in social media, with the ceremony standing out as one of Twitter’s trending topics on both Sunday and Monday, soaring to the number one ranking throughout the simulcast.

Celebrating the most outstanding performances of the past year, the SAG Awards handed out top honors to The King’s Speech, which earned accolades for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and Outstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role (Colin Firth).  Those also honored with individual Actors® for motion pictures were Natalie Portman (Black Swan) for her lead performance, and Christian Bale (The Fighter) and Melissa Leo (The Fighter) for their supporting roles.

On the television side, individual Actor recipients included Alec Baldwin (30 Rock) and Betty White (Hot in Cleveland) for comedy, Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire) and Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife) for drama, and Claire Danes (Temple Grandin) and Al Pacino (You Don’t Know Jack) for their television movie performances.  The Ensemble awards for television this year went to Boardwalk Empire and Modern Family, while the SAG honors for stunt ensembles in film and television, announced during the TNT/TBS pre-show webcast, went to Inception and True Blood.

The 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards was produced by Jeff Margolis Productions in association with Screen Actors Guild Awards®, LLC.  For more information about the SAG Awards and SAG, visit http://sagawards.org/about. TNT first aired the Screen Actors Guild Awards in 1998.  TBS began simulcasting the event in 2006.

Ballots For 17th SAG Awards Nominations Mailed To Nominating Committees November 24th

Ballots for the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® Nominations will be mailed to the SAG Awards® Nominating Committees on Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010
17th Annual SAG Awards will be Simulcast on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011

LOS ANGELES (Nov. 23, 2010)  – Ballots for the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® nominations will be mailed to this year’s SAG Awards film and television nominating committees on Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010.

Votes for nominees may be cast online or via mailed paper ballot. Votes must be received by the Guild’s official teller, Integrity Voting Systems, by Monday, Dec. 13, 2010 at 5 p.m (PT). Nominations for the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be announced at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood on Thursday, Dec. 16, 2010 at 6 a.m. (PT)/9 a.m. (ET), telecast live on TNT and webcast live on tnt.tv and tbs.com.

The Screen Actors Guild Award—The Actor®—is presented for outstanding performances in motion pictures and primetime television. The nominees for performances in 2010, including the distinctive ensemble awards and the stunt ensemble honors, will be chosen by two separate film and television nominating panels, each comprised of 2,100 SAG members from across the United States that were randomly selected in April 2010. Submissions closed on October 28. Requests for nomination consideration in a category of the actor’s choosing were submitted by actors or, with the actor’s permission, by producers, studios/networks, agents, managers or publicists.

Of the top industry honors presented to performers, only the SAG Awards are selected entirely by actors’ peers in the Screen Actors Guild. Recipients of the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be announced at ceremonies on Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011, simulcast live from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center on TNT and TBS at 8 p.m. (ET)/5 p.m. (PT).

Final voting information will be mailed via postcard to all eligible voting members of the Screen Actors Guild on Thursday, Dec. 30, 2010. Online voting is encouraged. Paper ballots will be made available only upon request, which must be made by Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. All votes must be received at Integrity Voting Systems by noon on Friday, Jan. 28, 2011. Results will be sealed until they are opened onstage at the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony.

Categories for 17th Annual SAG Awards nominations are:

Theatrical Motion Pictures
                                                                                                
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Motion Picture

Primetime Broadcast and Cable Television Programs

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series

Stunt Ensemble Honors (recipients to be announced from the SAG Awards® red carpet on Sunday, Jan. 30)

Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series

Upcoming key deadlines and events leading to the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards:

Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2010
Nominations Ballots Mailed

Monday, Dec. 13, 2010
Nomination Ballots Due at the Elections Firm by 5 p.m. (PT)

Thursday, Dec. 16, 2010
Nominations Announced

The 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be produced by Jeff Margolis Productions in association with Screen Actors Guild Awards®, LLC. For more information about the SAG Awards, SAG, TNT and TBS visit sagawards.org/about.

For more on SAG, check them out on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Source: Screen Actors Guild Awards

Ernest Borgnine To Be Honored With SCREEN ACTORS GUILD’s 47th Life Achievement Award

Thanks to Guy Lodge over at InContention for the heads up on this story.

47th Annual Accolade to be Presented During the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® Simulcast on TNT and TBS on Sunday, January 30, 2011

            Los Angeles, California (August 18, 2010) – Ernest Borgnine, who is exuberantly entering his seventh decade of creating memorable characters and award-winning performances, will receive Screen Actors Guild (SAG)’s most prestigious accolade-—the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment. Borgnine, who has performed in more than 200 motion pictures, five television series and dozens of television films and guest appearances, will be presented the Award, given annually to an actor who fosters the “finest ideals of the acting profession,” at the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®, which premieres live on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, 7 p.m. CT, 6 p.m. MT. Nominations will be announced on December 16, 2010.

In making today’s announcement, Screen Actors Guild National President Ken Howard said, “Whether portraying brutish villains, sympathetic everymen, complex leaders or hapless heroes, Ernest Borgnine has brought a boundless energy which, at 93, is still a hallmark of his remarkably busy life and career. It is with that same joyous spirit that we salute his impressive body of work and his steadfast generosity.”

Borgnine has been the recipient of industry recognition, critical praise and audience approbation throughout his career. He first drew the public eye in 1953 with his portrayal of the vicious Sergeant “Fatso” Judson, who beat Frank Sinatra’s Maggio to a pulpy death in the Oscar -winning film “From Here to Eternity.” He was memorable as one of the thugs who threatened a one-armed Spencer Tracy in “Bad Day at Black Rock,” then did a 180-degree turn in 1955, starring for director Delbert Mann and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky as the title character in what was to be the year’s best picture Oscar winner, “Marty.”

His touching performance as the lonely butcher won Borgnine an Academy Award®, a BAFTA and a Golden Globe®.

 

He would receive a second Golden Globe nomination some 52 years later for the title role in the telefilm “A Grandpa for Christmas” and an Independent Spirit Award nomination in 1989 for his Mafia boss in “Spike of Bensonhurst.”

During the ‘50s, Borgnine performed frequently on such Golden Age of Television masterworks as “G.E. Theatre” and  “Philco Playhouse,” but it was the 1962-66 broad ensemble comedy “McHale’s Navy” that would cement his presence as a household name and earn Borgnine his first Emmy® nomination in 1963. The Television Academy would again nominate Borgnine in 1980 for his portrait of World War I soldier Stanislaus Katczinsky in the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of “All Quiet on the Western Front” (again under Delbert Mann’s direction) and just last year for his guest role as a devoted husband coming to terms with his wife’s imminent death in the final episode of “ER.”

Borgnine was also the recipient in 1999 of a Daytime Emmy nomination for his voice work as Carface in the animated “All Dogs Go to Heaven: The Series” and the same year began his continuing run as the voice of semi-retired aquatic superhero Mermaid Man in the Nickelodeon smash-hit “SpongeBob SquarePants,” bringing him a whole new legion of young fans. He’s also played an animated version of himself on “The Simpsons.”

Borgnine was born Ermes Effron Borgnino on Jan. 24, 1917 in Hamden, Conn., son of Italian immigrants Charles (fka Camillo) and Anna Borgnino and grandson of Count Paolo Boselli, financial advisor to Italian King Victor Emmanuel. When he was 2, his parents separated, and he moved to Italy with his mother until the family reunited in Connecticut when Borgnine was 5. After he graduated high school in 1935, finding factory work and driving a vegetable truck did not suit him, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He was discharged in October 1941, but a few months later, when the United States entered World War II, he re-enlisted and served until 1945, rising to the rank of Gunner’s Mate 1st Class. After the war, at his mother’s suggestion and with funds from the GI Bill, he enrolled in the Randall School of Dramatic Arts in Hartford, and then honed his craft at the famed Barter Theatre in Abington, Va.. There where he painted scenery, worked as stagehand and drove a truck yet-again, eventually getting a shot at acting in numerous classics.  He even traveled with the company to entertain U.S. servicemen in Germany and Denmark, in the role of Guildenstern in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

Borgnine’s big break came in 1949, when he won the role of the hospital attendant in a Broadway production of “Harvey.” His success in live television prompted a move to Los Angeles, where in 1951, he made his motion picture debut in “The Whistle at Eaton Falls.”  The staggering catalog of his 200 motion pictures since includes such classics as “Johnny Guitar,” starring Joan Crawford; “Vera Cruz,” with Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster; “The Catered Affair,” opposite Bette Davis; legendary ensemble pieces like Robert Aldrich’s “The Dirty Dozen” and Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch”; and large-scale productions like “The Vikings,” “Torpedo Run,” “Emperor of the North,” “Ice Station Zebra,” “Flight Of The Phoenix,” “Escape from New York” and “The Poseidon Adventure.” He portrayed controversial FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover in the 1983 telefilm “Blood Feud” and again in the feature “Hoover,” which he also executive produced.  He also played real-life boxing coach Angelo Dundee opposite Muhammad Ali (as himself) in “The Greatest.” His latest film “Red,” starring Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Richard Dreyfuss and Brian Cox, opens in October.

Besides “McHale’s Navy,” Borgnine’s television credits include starring as seasoned police office Joe Cleaver in “Future Cop” (1976-77), as veteran aircraft owner Dominic Santini “Airwolf” (1984-86), and as doorman Manny Cordoba in “The Single Guy” (1995-97). Among his telefilms and miniseries are “Jesus of Nazareth”; “The Trail to Hope Rose,” for which, at age 87, he drove a team of horses and was honored with the Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame; and this year’s “Wishing Well.” He had a recurring role on “The Commish” and guest starred in numerous series, including “JAG,” “Early Edition,” “Walker, Texas Ranger,” “Little House on the Prairie,” “Touched By An Angel,” “7th Heaven,” “Family Law” and “The District.”  He even appeared in the first “Center Square” in the “Hollywood Squares” when the game show premiered in 1965.

Borgnine has received Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Columbia College Hollywood, Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Lakeland College in Mikwaukee and the University of Northern Alabama. Still deeply connected to Navy years, he maintains contacts with old shipmates from his destroyer days. He was recognized for his support of the Navy Memorial Fund with the Lone Sailor award from the Navy Memorial Foundation and was named an Honorary Chief Petty Officer by the Navy Chiefs. Some 20 years ago, he acquired another Naval title: Honorary Flight Leader for the Navy’s Flight Demonstration Team: The Blue Angels. In 2000, the Veterans Foundation elected him Veteran of the Year. As he celebrated his 90th birthday, he was honored with the California Commendation Medal for his support of the military by the Commanding Officer of the California National Guard.  In 2009, he participated in a special tribute to the Navy at the National Memorial Day Parade presented by the American Veterans Center in Washington, D.C.

In 1985, Borgnine received the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s Golden Boot Award for his work in film and television Westerns. In 1990, he was named Honorary Mayor of Universal City, where “McHale’s Navy” was filmed. In 1997, the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival honored him with the King Vidor Memorial Award. The National Film Theatre of Great Britain honored him in May 2001 for a lifetime of artistic achievement. In 2009, he received a special tribute at the Almería, Spain International Film Festival and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhode Island International Film Festival, which screened his then-latest feature “Another Harvest Moon,” in which he starred opposite Piper Laurie, Anne Meara and Doris Roberts.

In 2002, Borgnine received a lifetime achievement award from his mother’s birthplace, Carpi, Italy.  In honor of his Italian parentage, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. For a quarter century, he marched as the Grand Clown in “The Great Circus Parade” in Milwaukee. A Freemason for 60 years, he is proud to have been honored with the 33rd Degree of the Masonic Order of the Grand Cross. He was honorary chair of the Scottish Rite RiteCare Program, which sponsors 175 childhood language disorders clinics, centers and programs nationwide, and narrated “On the Wings of Words,” a film about the RiteCare Program.

Borgnine’s 2008 autobiography, “Ernie” was a “New York Times” bestseller.  He lives in Beverly Hills with his wife of 37 years, Tova, QVC’s on camera spokesperson for Tova cosmetics,

The 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be produced by Jeff Margolis Productions in association with Screen Actors Guild Awards®, LLC. Jeff Margolis is the executive producer and director. Kathy Connell is the producer. JoBeth Williams, Daryl Anderson, Scott Bakula, Shelley Fabares and Paul Napier are producers for SAG. Gloria Fujita O’Brien and Mick McCullough are supervising producers. Benn Fleishman is executive in charge of production. Rosalind Jarrett is the Executive in Charge of Publicity.  Jon Brockett is the Awards Coordinating Producer.

For more on SAG, check them out on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Source: Screen Actors Guild Awards