Jackie Chan, Lynn Stalmaster to receive honorary Academy Awards

Actor Jackie Chan, film editor Anne V. Coates, casting director Lynn Stalmaster and documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman will receive Governors Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Thursday.

The Academy's Board of Governors voted Tuesday to grant the honorary Oscars, which are given for "extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences, or for outstanding service to the Academy.”

"The honorary award was created for artists like Jackie Chan, Anne Coates, Lynn Stalmaster and Frederick Wiseman — true pioneers and legends in their crafts,” academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs said in a statement.  “The board is proud to honor their extraordinary achievements.

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The four Oscar statuettes will be presented at the academy’s eighth annual Governors Awards Nov. 12 at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center.

The Academy praised Chan, 62, for his "distinctive international career." Chan has starred in — and often wrote, directed and produced — more than 30 martial arts features in his native Hong Kong.

Since Rumble in the Bronx in 1996, Chan has hit worldwide success with the Rush Hour movies, Shanghai Noon, Shanghai Knights, Around the World in 80 Days, The Karate Kid and the Kung Fu Panda animated films.

Pete Hammond, awards columnist for the industry website Deadline.com, praised the choice of Chan for recognition of the actor's stunt-driven career and awards diversity. "The Asian community in particular will welcome it, as very few Asian actors have been honored with an Oscar, to be sure."

But Hammond expressed surprise that Chan was selected, considering how many fellow respected actors haven't won Oscars — "Donald Sutherland, Max von Sydow and Doris Day, to name three."

"Chan is a choice I would not have guessed," Hammond says.

British editor Coates, 90, is best known for her work with director David Lean on the classic 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, for which she won an Oscar. In more than 60 years as a film editor, she has worked with leading directors including Sidney Lumet (Murder on the Orient Express), Richard Attenborough (Chaplin) and Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich). 

Coates also earned Oscar nominations for Becket, The Elephant Man, In the Line of Fire and Out of Sight.

Stalmaster, 88, an Omaha native, began working in casting in the mid-1950s. Over the next five decades, he worked on more than 200 feature films, including such classics as Inherit the Wind, In the Heat of the Night, The Graduate, Fiddler on the Roof, Harold and Maude, Deliverance, Coming Home, Tootsie and The Right Stuff. 

He has been instrumental in the careers of such celebrated actors as Jon Voight, Richard Dreyfuss, Scott Wilson, Jill Clayburgh, Christopher Reeve and John Travolta.

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Boston-born director Wiseman, 86, has made one film almost every year since 1967, "illuminating lives in the context of social, cultural and government institutions," according to the academy release.

Wiseman's first feature, Titicut Follies, established an unobtrusive, observational storytelling style that has strongly identified his work and served as a major directing influence.

The 2015 honorees were Debbie Reynolds, Spike Lee and Gena Rowlands.