NAACP Image Awards
On February 1st, I produced the NAACP Image Awards. Moment of clarification: in television, the highest title is executive producer, which I was on this show along with Brad Lachman. On movies, the main “producer” title is producer, which I am on Django along with Stacey Sher and Pilar Savone. Most civilians not in the entertainment business mix them up, or give me jobs on projects that I didn’t do, like direct the Image Awards (Tony McCuin did that) or write and direct Django (Quentin Tarantino did that).
Back to the Image Awards. I knew it was going to be a great show when the NAACP told them they were giving Harry Belafonte the Springarn Medal, their highest honor. Mr. Belafonte is a person I try to honor whenever I can. He received BET’s top honor when I was there, and I was glad to do it again.
Seeing living legends Sidney Poiter and Harry Belafonte onstage together blew everyone’s mind. This was the most popular moment in the show. No surprise there. By the way, when I asked Mr. Belafonte if he minded if Wyclef performed in his honor since he had such deep respect for him, he loved the idea, loved Wyclef and suggested that Common join him. That’s how hip the 85 year old Mr. Belafonte is.
It was an awesome night for Kerry Washington, who won Best Supporting Actress in a motion picture for DJANGO UNCHAINED, best actress in a drama series for SCANDAL and the President’s Award for all the wonderful things she represents. Someone put together a nice montage of all her moments in the show:
Jamie Foxx won the Entertainer of the Year Award, which is an audience award, not just the NAACP membership. As usual, he brought it home with an amazing heartfelt speech. I HATE that it got clipped at the end…but this is NBC, not BET…we could not run long.