Photo Call Alert Honorary Conferring Ceremony Beverly Hills

May 5, 2005 -- National University of Ireland Galway will celebrate the achievements of four outstanding individuals by conferring them with honorary degrees at a formal ceremony in Los Angeles on the 6 May 2005. It is the first time that the University has awarded honorary degrees at a ceremony held outside of Ireland.

Degrees will be conferred on the following individuals:

-Anjelica Huston, for her contribution to cinematic arts, as an actress and director.

-Ray Bradbury, for his outstanding achievements as a novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and poet

-Merv Griffin, for his contribution to American entertainment and popular culture.

The Honorary Degree ceremony will take place in the presence of Chancellor of the National University of Ireland and former Taoiseach (Irish Prime minister), Dr Garrett FitzGerald and President of NUI Galway, Dr Iognid Muircheartaigh.

The conferring ceremony will be followed by the Huston Gala at the Beverly Hilton hotel, Los Angeles. This will be the culmination of a programme of business, cultural and academic events during the first week of May 2005 to mark the continued growth and influence of the NUI Galway-based Huston School of Film & Digital Media.

Dr Muircheartaigh, NUI Galway President said: By hosting this unique Conferring Ceremony and Gala in Los Angeles, we are celebrating both the Huston Film School and the strong links between Ireland and Southern California. The four outstanding individuals who we will honour, all of whom enjoy strong Galway connections, have demonstrated exemplary standards of artistic creativity and humanitarian service and their influence is felt and admired across the world.

Rod Stoneman, Director of the Huston School of Film & Digital Media said: Since its launch in 2003, the Film School has been very successful and now attracts graduate students from Ireland and abroad to participate in a range of programmes including our screen writing, film studies and arts administration programmes. These graduates will play a significant role in the film and television industries in the future at regional, national and international levels.

The Los Angeles events will bring together celebrities from the world of film and television along with leaders from business and political life and the many graduates of NUI Galway who are living in California. Proceeds from the Huston Gala, which will have a strong entertainment programme with a distinctive Celtic flavour, including a performance from ConTempo, Galway's ensemble-in-residence, will contribute toward the continued development of the Huston Film School.

The Huston Film School is named after John Huston, one of the twentieth century's greatest film directors and celebrates the Huston family's links to the west of Ireland and St. Cleran's, the family home in Galway, which is now operated as an exclusive hotel.

�Anjelica Huston, daughter of director John Huston, spent her childhood in the West of Ireland, at the family home, St Cleran's in Craughwell, Co. Galway. She was awarded an Oscar for her performance in Prizzi's Honor, making her the first third-generation Academy Award winner in history. She featured in her father's final directorial effort, The Dead (1987) and Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Huston earned additional Oscar nominations for Enemies: A Love Story (1989) and The Grifters (1990). She played Morticia Addams in the two Addams Family movies in the early '90s; both of which earned her Golden Globe nominations. Other notable roles for the actress during the 1990s included The Crossing Guard (1995), Ever After (1998) and Buffalo '66. In 1996, Huston made her directorial debut with Bastard Out of Carolina, a praised adaptation of Dorothy Allison's novel of the same name, followed by Agnes Browne (1999), shot mostly in Dublin and in which she starred and directed.
















She is Patron of the Huston School of Digital Film and Media at NUI Galway and has worked tirelessly to support the School's development.



-Ray Bradbury has more than five hundred published works - short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, television scripts, and verse - all of which exemplify the American imagination at its most creative. His best-known books include The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Bradbury enjoyed a working relationship with John Huston, for whom he wrote the screenplay of Moby Dick in Ireland in 1953. His experiences during this time were captured in Bradbury's Green Shadows, White Whale. In recognition of his literary stature Bradbury was awarded the National Book Foundation's 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, the PEN Center USA West Lifetime Achievement Award, among others. In November 2000, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was conferred upon Mr. Bradbury at the 2000 National Book Awards Ceremony in New York City. Ray Bradbury has been nominated for an Academy Award (for his animated film Icarus Montgolfier Wright), and has won an Emmy Award (for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree). He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's Ray Bradbury Theatre.

-Merv Griffin is Chair of Merv Griffin Enterprises. Following a brief career as a singer, he became a game show host. He hosted one of America's most successful talk shows from 1965-86. His most lasting contributions to American popular culture were his creations of game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. The current owner of St Cleran's, he carried out a sensitive restoration of the house and commissioned the book St. Cleran's: the Tale of a Manor House, by William Henry, which was published in 1999. He is on the board of the Ronald Reagan Library and has been the recipient of numerous Emmy Awards. His business interests include Merv Griffin Productions (Events production. e.g. Golden Globe Awards); Merv Griffin Hotels; and Merv Griffin Entertainment (TV and game shows).

For further information on the NUI Galway Huston Gala visit www.hustongala.com.

More info from :

Buzz O Neill

The O Neill Group

U.S. cell - 714- 913- 5771

e-mail protected from spam bots

www.the-oneillgroup.com

351 Old Newport Boulevard,

Ste. 420,

Newport Beach CA 92663

Phone: 949 722 6551

Fax: 949 722 3677

Email: e-mail protected from spam bots

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

This article has been robotically scanned and tagged by Prnewsnow with the following search tags. No human manipulation of these tags take place.
| Clubmom | Partners Offer | |

4916 readers online...

, Local News

Subscribe in a reader