Academy Award

Oscar-Winning Director

b. April 6, 1955

“[Filmmaking] gave me the opportunity to speak to the world.”

Rob Epstein is an American film director, writer and producer, and the cofounder of the production company Telling Pictures. Best known for his groundbreaking feature-length documentaries, he is the first openly gay director to win an Oscar for an LGBT-themed film.

Epstein was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. At age 19, he moved to San Francisco. He started his career as one of the six-member Mariposa Film Group. Mariposa created “Word Is Out: Stories From Some of Our Lives” (1977), the first feature-length documentary by and for LGBT Americans. The pioneering film aired nationally in theaters and on primetime public television, increasing visibility for the gay community during a transformative period in the LGBT rights movement.

Epstein conceived, directed and co-produced his next project, “The Times of Harvey Milk" (1985), about the slain gay San Francisco board supervisor. Premiering at the Telluride and New York film festivals, the film touched audiences worldwide. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, along with Peabody, Emmy and Sundance Awards. It made Epstein the first openly gay director to win an Oscar for an LGBT-themed movie. In 2013 the Library of Congress selected “The Times of Harvey Milk” for the National Film Registry. The prestigious Criterion Collection also includes it in their catalog.

In 1987 Epstein and his husband, Jeffrey Friedman, founded Telling Pictures, a San Francisco-based production company. Together they produced “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt” (1985), an HBO documentary about the AIDS epidemic, for which Epstein won a Peabody and his second Academy Award. Their box-office hit, “The Celluloid Closet” (1995), a retrospective of LGBT images in Hollywood, featuring interviews with luminaries such as Tom Hanks and Whoopie Goldberg, won a Peabody and an Emmy Award. Other acclaimed films by Epstein and Friedman include “End Game” (2018), “State of Pride” (2019) and “Paragraph 175” (2000). Shifting from documentary to biopic, the duo also collaborated on “Lovelace” (2013), starring Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard and Sharon Stone, about the porn star Linda Lovelace, and “HOWL” (2015), starring James Franco as the famous gay poet Allen Ginsberg.

In addition to filmmaking, Epstein is a professor and co-chair of the film program at California College of the Arts. He has served on the Sundance Institute's board of trustees and on the board of the governors of the documentary branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2008 he received the Pioneer Award for distinguished lifetime achievement from the International Documentary Association.

Oscar-Winning Filmmaker

b. June 7, 1928

“[‘Call Me by Your Name’] is a story familiar to most of us, whether we’re straight or gay.”

James Ivory is an award-winning film director, producer and screenwriter. Along with film producer Ismail Merchant, his life partner, he founded the highly successful movie-making enterprise Merchant Ivory Productions. Ivory won the Academy Award for “Call Me by Your Name” (2017), a gay coming-of-age romantic drama set in 1980s Italy.

Ivory was born in Berkeley, California. He studied fine arts at the University of Oregon before attending the USC School for Cinematic Arts. The documentary he created for his master’s thesis, “Venice: Theme and Variations,” was selected by The New York Times as one of the 10 best nontheatrical films of the year.

In 1959 Ivory met Ismail Merchant at a film screening in New York. The two fell in love, and in 1961 they founded Merchant Ivory Productions. Though they initially intended to make English language films in India for the international market, they made many films set in England and the United States. For the most part, Ivory directed and Merchant produced the company’s 44 movies.

Best known for their intelligent themes and superb casting, Merchant Ivory films have garnered countless nominations and awards in the United States and Europe. The company’s most iconic pictures are based on literary works dealing with social issues. “Maurice” (1987), directed by Ivory, was one of the first movies to affirmatively depict gay relationships and became a life-changing film for many young gay men in the ’80s and ’90s. Ivory received the Academy Award nomination for Best Director for “A Room with a View” (1985), “Howards End (1992) and “The Remains of the Day” (1993).
 
Until Merchant’s death in 2015, Ivory and Merchant shared a professional and romantic relationship. Because Merchant came from a deeply conservative Indian Muslim family, the couple kept their 44-year love affair quiet. References to their personal life were made only discreetly by the press.

In 2018 at age 89, Ivory won the Academy Award and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for “Call Me by Your Name,” making him the oldest recipient in the history of either award. In his acceptance speech, he described the film as “a story familiar to most of us; whether we’re straight or gay, or somewhere in between, we’ve all gone through first love, I hope, and come out on the other side mostly intact.”

Oscar-Winning Screenwriter

b. October 17, 1980

“It’s really important for us, in terms of the storytellers, to be able to talk about these intimate details that built our lives.”

Tarell Alvin McCraney is an award-winning playwright and an actor. In 2017 he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for “Moonlight,” a film based on his autobiographical play, “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue.”

McCraney was born in the tough Liberty City section of Miami, Florida, to a teenage mother who struggled with crack addiction. He survived with the help of a kind-hearted drug dealer and his grandparents, who encouraged learning and offered a vision of life outside his crime-infested neighborhood.   

McCraney attended Miami’s New World School of the Arts and was accepted into the Theatre School at DePaul University, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting. At age 24, he enrolled in the playwriting program at Yale School of Drama. Upon graduation he received the prestigious Cole Porter playwriting award. 

At Yale, McCraney wrote his first famous play, “The Brothers Size.” It opened off Broadway in 2007, when he was a third-year student. The New York Times reviewed it enthusiastically.

“The Brothers Size,” and two other plays he wrote in drama school, “In The Red and Brown Water” and “Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet,” make up McCraney’s acclaimed trilogy, “The Brother/Sister Plays.” Set in the Louisiana bayou and drawing upon West African Lore, “The Brother/Sister Plays” distinguished McCraney as a gifted new artist. The trilogy was performed in repertory in the United States and worldwide.

From 2009 to 2011, McCraney served as the Warwick International Playwright in Residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. In 2010 he became a member of the celebrated Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. He also performed with the Northlight Theatre and co-starred in the Chicago premiere of “Blue/Orange.” 

In 2013 McCraney received a $625,000 MacArthur Fellowship, known as the “genius grant.” The MacArthur Foundation presents the coveted prize annually to 24 “extraordinarily talented and creative individuals.” 

With the director Barry Jenkins, McCraney co-wrote the screenplay for the 2016 film “Moonlight,” which draws on his experience growing up black and gay in a Miami housing project. The film won three Academy Awards, including  Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for best picture, and dozens of other awards and nominations.
 
Among other honors, McCraney has received London's Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, The New York Times’ inaugural Outstanding Playwright Award and the renowned Whiting Award. The Advocate named him to its list of “40 under 40” and Out magazine featured him on its “Out100” list.

McCraney is the Chair and Eugene O’Neill Professor in the Practice of Playwriting at Yale University School of Drama and the Playwright-in-Residence of the Yale Repertory Theatre. 

Documentary Filmmaker

b. October 12, 1957
d. November 7, 2017

“We all know plenty of gay people who have won Academy Awards, but we’re all just quiet about it. I couldn’t imagine having that profound of an honor and not acknowledging my partner.” 

Debra Hill Chasnoff was an American documentary filmmaker and activist. She won the 1992 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject for “Deadly Deception.” In her acceptance speech, Chasnoff became the first Academy Award recipient to acknowledge a same-sex partner during the ceremony’s live national telecast. She came out in doing so. 

Chasnoff was born in Philadelphia and grew up in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. Her father, Joel Chasnoff, was a Maryland state legislator and her mother, Selina Sue Prosen, was a psychologist. In 1978 Chasnoff graduated with a degree in economics from Wellesley College.

Chasnoff made 12 documentary films. With her production company, GroundSpark, she produced and distributed documentaries covering social issues such as income inequality, environmental rights and LGBT rights. The company’s mission was to “create films and dynamic education campaigns that move individuals and communities to take action for a more just world.” Films like “That’s a Family” (2000) exposed students nationwide to diverse households of multiracial families and same-sex parents. 

Chasnoff’s influential first film, “Choosing Children” (1984), showcased six same-sex American couples raising children through adoption, biological donors or fostering. It won Best Short Documentary at the New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and First Prize from the National Educational Film Festival. The New York Times reported that the film “inspired many gay and lesbian couples to start raising families of their own.” 

In 1991 Chasnoff directed and produced “Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment.” The exposé earned her the 1992 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject. In accepting the award, Chasnoff thanked her then partner, Kim Klausner.  

In addition to filmmaking, Chasnoff was a visiting scholar in public policy at Mills College in California. Mayor Art Agnos of San Francisco appointed her vice chair of the city’s Film and Video Arts Commission. She also served on the advisory boards of the San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and the Jewish Voices for Peace organization. 

At age 60, Chasnoff died of breast cancer. She was survived by her spouse Nancy Otto, an artist and nonprofit fundraiser, and two sons from her relationship with Klausner. The New York Times published Chasnoff’s obituary.

Filmmaker

“If I can encourage adjustments or a wider sphere of thoughts or questioning, then I will feel that I’ve done something.”

Arthur Dong is an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker best known for chronicling Asian-American history and LGBT life. He earned an Oscar nomination in 1984 for “Sewing Woman,” about his mother’s immigration to America from China, which he produced as film student at San Francisco State University. As a result of the film’s success, he founded DeepFocus Productions to produce, direct and write projects close to his heart.

“Stories from the War on Homosexuality” (2005), Dong’s first DVD collection, features a trilogy of films focused on gay issues, including “Coming Out Under Fire” (1994), his Peabody Award-winning documentary about World War II policies impacting gay and lesbian service members; “Licensed to Kill” (1997), a study of convicted murderers of gay men; and “Family Fundamentals” (2002), a look at conservative Christian families with gay children.

Dong’s 2007 documentary “Hollywood Chinese” was featured on the PBS series “American Masters” in 2009. The film is included in his second DVD collection, “Stories from Chinese America,” which was released in 2010.

In the early 1990s, Dong produced 13 documentaries for Los Angeles' KCET-TV’s “Life & Times." For the first national PBS series about gay issues, “The Question of Equality,” he directed the episode, “Out Rage ’69,” about New York’s famous Stonewall Riots—the uprisings that helped galvanize the modern LGBT civil rights movement.

Along with other recognition, Dong has received three Sundance Film Festival Awards and five Emmy nominations. He has also received two GLAAD Media Awards and the OUT 100 Award for his work on “Licensed to Kill.”

In 2014 Dong turned his research for the film "Forbidden City, USA” into a book, which recieved the 2015 American Book Award. Most recently, he released his latest film, "The Killing Fields of Dr. Haing S. Ngor," and was appointed Distinguished Professor in Film at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Movie Director

b. December 24, 1959, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“I don't work with fear, and I don't work with actors that are fearful.”

Lee Daniels is an Academy Award nominated producer, director, screenwriter and actor.

Daniels survived a traumatic childhood. After being caught wearing his mother’s pumps, he was violently assaulted by his father. Daniels stated, “When I came out it was because I loathed my dad so much.”

Torment also followed Daniels to school. He was gay and black in a predominantly white school. “I was always told that I was nothing because I was gay,” he said.

At age 21, Daniels started a nurse-staffing agency, which he sold a year later. The sale made him a millionaire and allowed him to pursue his dream of working in the entertainment industry. He first worked as a casting director and later as a talent manager. He built a client base of Academy Award winners and nominees, most of whom later worked in Daniels’s films.

Daniels became a Hollywood force in 2001 when his production company released “Monster’s Ball,” a movie for which Halle Berry won the Oscar for Best Actress. Daniels later directed the film “Precious.” His experience as a sexually abused child inspired his direction of the film. “Precious” received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Director, and earned two Academy Awards.

In 2012 his film “The Paperboy,” with Nicole Kidman, was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2013 Daniels directed the critically acclaimed film “The Butler,” with Oprah Winfrey, Forest Whitaker, John Cusack, Jane Fonda and Mariah Carey.

Actor

b. November 19, 1962

“It was the job I was born into. I didn't have an actor's personality, it's just what I did.”

Jodie Foster is a celebrated actor, director and producer. She has received two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Foster was born in Los Angeles, the youngest child of a film producer and an Air Force officer. Her parents divorced before she was born. Foster’s career began at age 3 in a Coppertone commercial. As a child, she appeared in dozens of commercials and television series, including as a co-star in “Paper Moon.”

Her breakout role was as a teenage prostitute in “Taxi Driver” (1976), for which she received an Academy Award nomination. In 1980, Foster enrolled at Yale University. She graduated magna cum laude with a degree in literature. While at Yale, she was stalked by John Hinckley, an obsessed fan who shot President Reagan and said he did so to impress her.

Foster won her first Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for her role in “The Accused” (1988). She earned her second Oscar and another Golden Globe Award for “Silence of the Lambs” (1991), her first blockbuster film. That same year, she made her directorial debut with “Little Man Tate,” in which she co-starred. In 1995, she directed “Home for the Holidays.”

Foster has appeared in more than 40 films, including “Maverick” (1994), “Nell” (1994), “Contact” (1997), “The Panic Room” (2002), “Inside Man” (2006) and “The Brave One” (2007).

In 2007, while accepting an award at a Hollywood Reporter “Women in Entertainment” event, she acknowledged her then long-term partner, producer Cydney Bernard, with the words, “to my beautiful Cydney, who sticks with me through the rotten and the bliss.”

That same year, Foster gave The Trevor Project its largest donation. Foster lives in Beverly Hills with her two sons.

Actor

b. January 18, 1904
d. November 29, 1986

"I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me." 
    
One of Hollywood's most distinguished actors, Cary Grant was named one of the greatest male American screen legends by American Film Institute. Grant starred in over 70 films and earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Actor. In 1970, Grant won the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Originally Archibald Alexander Leach, Grant was born in Bristol, England as the only child in an impoverished family. When Grant was nine years old, his mother was institutionalized.

Grant left school at age 14 and joined the Bob Pender comedy troupe, which helped develop his dancing and acrobatic skills. In 1920, the troupe stopped performing in small English towns and took a two-year tour of the US. Grant decided to stay in New York, and in 1927 he performed in the musical "Golden Dawn." In 1931, Grant moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film. When he signed a 5-year contract with Paramount, Paramount had him change his name to Cary Grant.

Grant debuted in "This is the Night" (1932), but "The Awful Truth" (1937) made him a star. Handsome, witty and charming, Grant succeeded in creating a unique onscreen character. After starring in hits such as "Bringing up Baby" (1938), "Holiday" (1938), "Gunga Din" (1939), "Only Angels Have Wings" (1939), "His Girl Friday" (1940), "My Favorite Wife" (1940) and "The Philadelphia Story" (1940), as well as three Hitchcock films, Grant retired in 1966 as a mega-star.

While Grant married five women and fathered a child with his fourth wife, he was sexually active with men. Between marriages, Grant often resided with fellow actor Randolph Scott.

Grant died of a stroke on November 29, 1986.

Film Director

Gus Van Sant is an Academy Award nominated director and screenwriter whose films include “Good Will Hunting” and “Milk.” 

Van Sant was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of a traveling salesman. At an early age, he began producing semi-autobiographical Super-8 movies. 

In 1975, Van Sant graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design. After college, he moved to Los Angeles, where he developed a fascination with the city’s marginalized subcultures. 

With $20,000 in savings, he bankrolled most of his first film, “Mala Noche” (1985).  Shot in black and white, the ill-fated love story between two men earned Van Sant critical acclaim. The Los Angeles Times named “Mala Noche” the year’s best independent film.

Van Sant wrote and directed “Drugstore Cowboy” (1989), which received rave reviews and won an Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay. “My Own Private Idaho,” starring Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix as male hustlers, earned Van Sant another Independent Spirit Award. 

The success of Van Sant’s first major studio directing project, “To Die For” (1995), starring Nicole Kidman, established him as an A-List Hollywood director. His 1997 blockbuster, “Good Will Hunting,” starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including best director.

In 2003, Van Sant directed the controversial HBO film “Elephant,” based on the Columbine High School massacre. “Elephant” won the top prize (Palme d’Or) and the Award for Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival. 

In 2008, Van Sant directed “Milk,” the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to become an elected official. The film, starring Sean Penn, was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best director.  

The Advocate named Gus Van Sant one of its 2008 People of the Year.