The American Film Institute has zeroed in on a highly decorated pair of Hollywood creatives to honor at its upcoming conservatory commencement. Viola Davis and Walter Murch are each confirmed to receive an honorary doctorate of fine arts degree at a ceremony scheduled to take place at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre on Aug. 8.
“Viola Davis and Walter Murch — both masters of their craft — symbolize the standard of excellence AFI was founded to celebrate,” praised AFI president and CEO Bob Gazzale. “Their contributions to the art form have inspired audiences around the world as they will inspire this year’s graduates of the AFI Conservatory.”
With the distinction, Davis and Murch join a group of past AFI honorary degree recipients that includes Robert Altman, Maya Angelou, Saul Bass, Angela Bassett, Kathryn Bigelow, Mel Brooks, Carol Burnett, Anne V. Coates, Jamie Lee Curtis, Clint Eastwood, Roger Ebert, Nora Ephron, Jodie Foster, Lesli Linka Glatter, James Earl Jones, Lawrence Kasdan, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Angela Lansbury, Spike Lee, David Lynch, Helen Mirren, Rita Moreno, Quentin Tarantino, Lily Tomlin, Robert Towne, Cicely Tyson, Haskell Wexler, John Williams and Michelle Yeoh.
Davis, who achieved EGOT status, is a graduate of the Juilliard School who also received an honorary doctorate during its 109th commencement ceremony. She also snagged one from her other alma mater, Rhode Island College. The JuVee Productions co-founder (alongside husband Julius Tennon) is coming off the most recent release of G20 from Amazon MGM Studios.
Walter and Aggie Murch at the closing ceremony at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 25, 2024.
(Photo by Kristy Sparow/Getty Images)
Murch, an Academy Award-winning editor and sound designer, began his career editing sound on Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rain People in 1969. The native New Yorker earned his first Oscar nomination for 1974’s The Conversation, and won a few years later, in 1979, for his work on Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.
Murch went on to collaborate with such directors as George Lucas, Fred Zinnemann, Philip Kaufman, Anthony Minghella, Kathryn Bigelow, Sam Mendes and Brad Bird. He achieved something beyond rare when he won an unprecedented double Oscar for best sound and best film editing for his work on Minghella’s The English Patient. His other credits include THX 1138, the Godfather trilogy, American Graffiti, Return to Oz, Tomorrowland, Jarhead, Cold Mountain, K-19: The Widowmaker, The Talented Mr. Ripley, First Knight, I Love Trouble, Romeo is Bleeding, Ghost, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Julia and more.
