(Photo by Gage Skidmore, from Flickr)
LOS ANGELES (AP) | “Scream Queen” Jamie Lee Curtis will be this year’s recipient of AARP The Magazine’s Movies for Grownups Awards career achievement honor.
Curtis will receive the honor at the AARP’s annual Best Movies and TV for Grownups ceremony, the group announced Dec. 1. Alan Cumming returns to host the ceremony, which will be telecast on “Great Performances” on PBS on Feb. 17 at 9 p.m. Eastern.
“Jamie Lee Curtis’ longstanding, ever-increasing career shatters Hollywood’s outmoded stereotypes about aging, and it exemplifies what AARP’s Movies for Grownups program is all about,” AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins said in a statement.
Since stepping into the role of Laurie Strode in “Halloween” in 1978, the 64-year-old horror queen starred in her last installment of the slasher series “Halloween Ends,” and the blockbuster indie film, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” this year.
“We are delighted to honor Curtis, who at 19 became an iconic ‘scream queen’ in ‘Halloween,’ then grew up to be a master in comic and dramatic roles, too,” Jenkins said.
Curtis spoke about her transgender daughter in an AARP interview in July 2021, saying that she has “watched in wonder and pride as our son became our daughter Ruby.”
Curtis and her husband Christopher Guest — British screenwriter, composer, musician, director and actor — have two daughters. Ruby, 25, works as a computer gaming editor while Curtis and Guest’s 34-year-old daughter, Annie, is married and works as a dance instructor. In May, Curtis officiated the wedding of Ruby and her fiancé in a World of Warcraft-themed ceremony.
Curtis, whose other credits include, “True Lies,” “A Fish Called Wanda,” “Freaky Friday,” “Knives Out” and the television series “Scream Queens,” is an Emmy nominee and a British Academy Film Award winner. Her films have, over her four-decade-long career, earned $2.5 billion at the box office, the statement said.
The AARP’s Movies for Grownups program champions movies that resonate with viewers 50 and over, and fights ageism in the entertainment industry. Previous honorees include Lily Tomlin, George Clooney, Annette Bening, Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro and Michael Douglas.