The Beaufort Film Society will present the Pat Conroy Lifetime Achievement Award to both John Bailey, immediate Past President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (AMPAS), and his wife Carol Littleton, past member of the AMPAS Board of Governors, at the 2022 Beaufort International Film Festival (BIFF). They will be the first-ever co-honorees of the award.
Cinematographer John Bailey has a vast body of work that includes films such as The Big Chill, American Gigolo, As Good As It Gets, Silverado, The Accidental Tourist, Country Strong, In The Line of Fire and Groundhog Day. He has served on the Board of Governors of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) and on the Library of Congress’s National Film Preservation Board. He was previously honored with a special artistic achievement award from the Cannes Film Festival in 1985 for the Japanese film Mishima, the Lifetime Achievement Award by the ASC in 2016, and was made an Officier des Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French government at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. In 2019, he received both the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Gianni di Venanzo Festival in Teramo, Italy and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Camerimage International Film Festival in Torun, Poland.
Carol Littleton is an Oscar-nominated editor with a similarly impressive resume of 38 films including The Big Chill, E.T., Silverado, Beloved, Grand Canyon, Benny & Joon, Body Heat, Wyatt Earp, The Accidental Tourist and The Manchurian Candidate. Carol won an Emmy for Tuesdays with Morrie and she received a Career Achievement Award in 2016 from American Cinema Editors (ACE). Her Oscar nomination was for E.T. Extra Terrestrial. Carol served as an Academy Governor of the Film Editors branch for 12 years and is currently on its executive committee.
The Pat Conroy Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented during the awards segment of the 16th Annual Beaufort International Film Festival, which takes place February 22-27, 2022 in Beaufort, S.C. The awards ceremony is on February 27, 2022.
“We’re extremely honored to have as our Pat Conroy Lifetime Achievement honorees the husband and wife team of John Bailey and Carol Littleton,” said Ron Tucker, president of the Beaufort Film Society. “Together, they have been instrumental in shaping American cinema for the past two generations. When you look at the list of famous directors they’ve worked with, including Stephen Spielberg, Lawrence Kasdan, Robert Redford, Jonathan Demme, Sam Raimi, Callie Khouri and more, you realize just how great their impact on movies has been.”
It’s appropriate that John Bailey and Carol Littleton will receive the Pat Conroy Lifetime Achievement honor in Beaufort because it is the site of where the duo worked on The Big Chill when it was filmed nearly 40 years ago in 1982. John and Carol have been married since 1972.
Anyone interested in meeting these two Hollywood icons in person can attend a special event at BIFF on February 25, 2022 titled, An Afternoon with Hollywood Royalty: John Bailey and Carol Littleton.
The Pat Conroy Lifetime Achievement Award is sponsored by Leslie and Landon Thorne.