In a statement issued by the Director Guild of America, DGA president Michael Apted said, "Clint Eastwood is the consummate filmmaker. As one of the most prolific, versatile directors in the history of the medium, there isn't a genre that Clint Eastwood hasn't mastered in the more than 25 films he has directed over the past 35 years. The DGA is proud to honor his deft craftsmanship and brilliant vision with its Lifetime Achievement Award. His ongoing body of work continues to touch generations of moviegoers and bring huge audiences into movie theaters. He does it all with great class, intelligence, and style."
Eastwood joins a very exclusive list of winners. Although the Guild has been in existence for 70 years, the members do not present the award every year. In the history of the DGA, only 31 directors have received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
DGA Lifetime Achievement Award Winners
1953 Cecil B. De Mille
1954 John Ford
1956 Henry King
1957 King Vidor
1959 Frank Capra
1960 George Stevens
1961 Frank Borzage
1966 William Wyler
1968 Alfred Hitchcock
1970 Fred Zinnemann
1973 David Lean
1973 William A. Wellman
1981 George Cukor
1982 Rouben Mamoulian
1983 John Huston
1984 Orson Welles
1985 Billy Wilder
1986 Joseph L. Mankiewicz
1987 Elia Kazan
1988 Robert E. Wise
1990 Ingmar Bergman
1992 Akira Kurosawa
1993 Sidney Lumet
1994 Robert Altman
1995 James Ivory
1996 Woody Allen
1997 Stanley Kubrick
1998 Francis Ford Coppola
2000 Steven Spielberg
2003 Martin Scorsese
2004 Mike Nichols
SOURCE: Directors Guild of America
