The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award

The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award is awarded periodically by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...

at the Academy Award ceremonies for an individual's outstanding contributions to humanitarian causes. Unlike the Academy Award of Merit, the nomination and voting for this award are restricted to members of the Board of Governors of AMPAS

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...

.

The award is named after screen actor Jean Hersholt

Jean Hersholt

Jean Pierre Hersholt was a Danish-born actor who lived in the United States, where he was a leading film and radio talent, best known for his 17 years starring on radio in Dr. Christian and for playing Shirley Temple's grandfather in Heidi...

(1886–1956), who served as president of the Motion Picture Relief Fund

Motion Picture & Television Fund

The Motion Picture & Television Fund is a charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries with limited or no resources...

for 18 years. He also served as president of AMPAS from 1945 to 1949. http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/about/awards/hersholt.html Winners of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award are presented with an Oscar statuette. As of the 81st Academy Awards

81st Academy Awards

The 81st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2008 and took place February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST...

ceremony held on February 22, 2009, there have been 33 awards presented, two of which were posthumous.

Award winners

29th: Y. Frank Freeman
Y. Frank Freeman
Young Frank Freeman was an American film company executive for Paramount Pictures. Freeman graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1910. In addition to his work with Paramount, he also worked with banking, higher education, and athletics.He was the first winner of the Jean Hersholt...
30th: Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.-Biography:...
32nd: Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
33rd: Sol Lesser
34th: George Seaton
George Seaton
George Seaton was an American screenwriter, playwright, film director and producer, and theatre director.Born George Stenius in South Bend, Indiana, Seaton moved to Detroit after graduating from college to work as an actor on radio station WXYZ. John L...
35th: Steve Broidy
Steve Broidy
Samuel “Steve” Broidy was an American executive in the U.S. motion picture industry.Broidy was born in Malden, Massachusetts. He and went on to attend Boston University and entered the film industry as a salesman with the Franklin Film Company in 1925, moved to Universal Studios in 1926, and in...
38th: Edmond L. DePatie
Edmond L. DePatie
Edmond L. DePatie was an American film industry executive. He was vice president and general manager of Warner Bros...
39th: George Bagnall
40th: Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
41st: Martha Raye
Martha Raye
Martha Raye was an American comic actress and standards singer who performed in movies, and later on television....
42nd: George Jessel
George Jessel (actor)
George Albert Jessel was an American illustrated song "model," actor, singer, songwriter, and Academy Award-winning movie producer. He was famous in his lifetime as a multitalented comedic entertainer, achieving a level of recognition that transcended his limited roles in movies...

43rd: Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
45th: Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell was an American actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as the role of Mame Dennis in the film Auntie Mame...
46th: Lew Wasserman
Lew Wasserman
Lewis Robert "Lew" Wasserman was an American talent agent and studio executive, sometimes credited with creating and later taking apart the studio system in a career spanning more than six decades...
47th: Arthur B. Krim
Arthur B. Krim
Arthur B. Krim was an American entertainment lawyer, the former finance chairman for the U.S. Democratic Party, an adviser to President Lyndon Johnson and the former chairman of Eagle-Lion Films , United Artists , and Orion Pictures . He was also a partner at the firm of Phillips Nizer Benjamin...
48th: Jules C. Stein
50th: Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
51st: Leo Jaffe
Leo Jaffe
Leo Jaffe was an American film executive. He was chairman of the board of Columbia Pictures from 1973 until his retirement in 1981. He is the father of film producer Stanley R...
52nd: Robert Benjamin
Robert Benjamin
Robert Saul Benjamin . Robert Benjamin was a founding partner of the movie-litigation firm Phillips, Nizer, Benjamin, Krim & Ballon. With his longtime friend and partner, Arthur Krim, he took over United Artists in 1951...

†
54th: Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...
55th: Walter Mirisch
Walter Mirisch
Walter Mortimer Mirisch is an American film producer. In his long and successful motion picture career, Walter Mirisch has produced some of the industry’s finest and most memorable films...
56th: M.J. Frankovich
Mike Frankovich
Mitchell John “M.J.” Frankovich was an American film producerFrankovich was born in Bisbee, Arizona. He played football for UCLA and was inducted into UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame in 1986...

57th: David L. Wolper
David L. Wolper
David Lloyd Wolper was an American television and film producer, responsible for shows such as Roots, The Thorn Birds, North & South, L.A. Confidential, and the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory...
58th: Charles "Buddy" Rogers
62nd: Howard W. Koch
Howard W. Koch
Howard Winchel Koch was an American director and producer of motion pictures and television.Born in New York City, he attended DeWitt Clinton High School and the Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey...
65th: Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...

† / Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
66th: Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
67th: Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
74th: Arthur Hiller
Arthur Hiller
Arthur Hiller, OC is a Canadian film director. His filmography includes 33 major studio releases, including the 1970 film Love Story...
77th: Roger Mayer
79th: Sherry Lansing
Sherry Lansing
Sherry Lansing is a former actress and American film studio executive. She is former CEO of Paramount Pictures, and when president of production at 20th Century Fox was the first woman to head a Hollywood studio In 1996, she became the first woman named Pioneer of the Year by the Foundation of...
81st: Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
84th: Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...

Note: The † symbol indicates a posthumous winner.

Award winners

See also