LOS ANGELES — “Scream Queen” Jamie Lee Curtis will be this year’s recipient of AARP The Magazine’s Movies for Grownups Awards career achievement honor.
Curtis will receive the honor at the AARP’s annual Best Movies and TV for Grownups ceremony, the group announced Thursday. Alan Cumming returns to host the ceremony, which will be telecast on “Great Performances” on PBS on Feb. 17 at 9 p.m. ET.
“Jamie Lee Curtis’ longstanding, ever-increasing career shatters Hollywood’s outmoded stereotypes about aging, and it exemplifies what AARP’s Movies for Grownups program is all about,” AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins said in a statement.
Since stepping into the role of Laurie Strode in “Halloween” in 1978, the 64-year-old horror queen starred in her last installment of the slasher series “Halloween Ends,” and the blockbuster indie film, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” this year.
“We are delighted to honor Curtis, who at 19 became an iconic ‘scream queen’ in ‘Halloween,’ then grew up to be a master in comic and dramatic roles, too,” Jenkins said.
Spoilers!:Jamie Lee Curtis addresses that ‘incredible, inevitable’ ‘Halloween Ends’ finale
In October, USA TODAY talked to Curtis about concluding her “Halloween” story, a moment she called “really weird” and “definitely emotional and heart-pounding.”
“I guarantee you there will be one day when all of this dies down, all of this Laurie love (and) I will be sitting with my little dog, who will be very happy to have me home, and I will sob and sob and sob,” she said, choking up. “I’m too close to it. It’s too personal and it’s why it’s so good, but it’s also why it hurts so much.”
However, Curtis also said she was looking forward to a new beginning in Hollywood, banking on the success of the film series.
“I now have the opportunity to have a creative life that I’ve dreamt about my whole life and never had the foothold for it.” She wrote and will direct an eco-horror movie called “Mother Nature” that’s “been in my head since I was 19” and also started a production company within Jason Blum’s Blumhouse that allows her to buy books and take them to the screen. (First up: a TV show based on author Patricia Cornwell’s crime thrillers featuring forensic psychologist Kay Scarpetta.)
‘Halloween Ends’ review:It’s a bloody shame Jamie Lee Curtis didn’t get a better sendoff
Curtis’ other credits include, “True Lies,” “A Fish Called Wanda,” “Freaky Friday,” “Knives Out” and the television series “Scream Queens.” She is an Emmy nominee and a British Academy Film Award winner. And she is also garnering Oscar buzz – for wearing hot dog hands, no less – as part of “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
Her films have, over her four-decade-long career, earned $2.5 billion at the box office, the statement said.
The AARP’s Movies for Grownups program champions movies that resonate with viewers 50 and over, and fights ageism in the entertainment industry. Previous honorees include Lily Tomlin, George Clooney, Annette Bening, Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro and Michael Douglas.
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Contributing: Brian Truitt, USA TODAY
Story Credit: usatoday.com