At 97, American director Mel Brooks received an honorary Oscar on Tuesday for his entire body of work, more than half a century after winning his only Oscar for the film The Producers, in which he shot Hitler in ridiculous.

During the evening of the Governors Awards, which each year honor four beloved industry veterans, Mel Brook joked that he was remorseful about the fate of his previous Oscar, received for best original screenplay. ” I really miss him. I should never have sold it,” he said. “I won’t sell this one, I swear to God,” he said.

Having become a master of Hollywood comedy cinema by notably cultivating bad taste while denouncing racial bigotry in other films, such as The Sheriff is in Jail, Mel Brooks is one of the few to have won the greatest awards in American entertainment .

The Governors Awards are organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and generally celebrate figures from the film industry who have not received an award at the Oscars. Editor Carol Littleton was also rewarded on Tuesday, as was Sundance festival star Michelle Satter.

A tribute to the black pioneers of Hollywood

Twice Oscar-nominated Angela Bassett, 64, best known for her portrayal of Tina Turner in the 1993 biopic What’s Love Got to Do With It and as Queen Ramonda in the blockbuster sequel hero of 2022 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, also received an honorary Oscar.

Eclectic, the actress has starred in action films, such as The Fall of the White House and Mission: Impossible: Fallout, the horror series American Horror Story and even lent her voice to Michelle Obama in The Simpsons.

Recalling that she was only the second black actress to win an honorary Oscar, after Cicely Tyson, Angela Bassett paid tribute to other black pioneers in Hollywood, such as Hattie McDaniel, who won an Oscar for As Much Gone with the Wind in 1940. It would be another half-century before Hattie McDaniel was followed by actress Whoopi Goldberg. “My hope is that we leave this industry more enriched, forward-thinking and inclusive than we found it,” said Angela Bassett.