Dick Cavett Accepts WGA’s Evelyn F. Burkey Award – CB

At Sunday’s WGA Awards, late-night host, comic and author Dick Cavett obtained the Evelyn F. Burkey Award, talking in his acceptance speech about what writing means to him.

“Writing is without doubt one of the nice bastions of civilizations. It’s a department of the artwork that wants preserving,” he stated within the pre-taped section, “and I believed I’d attempt to get by means of this with out utilizing the phrase ‘honor,’ however that is an honor.”

The honoree, who hosted a number of iterations of The Dick Cavett Present over the course of virtually 20 years, additionally fondly recalled time spent with the innumerable literary icons that graced his present. “I’ve been fortunate to spend time with a number of the most colourful, great folks on this county and the world, and so they had been writers. Ms. Burkey, whose identify is on this award, was an actual character. She’s finished thousands and thousands of excellent issues for writers, helped them immensely,” he stated. “As soon as a jerky producer tried to fireplace me from a present and I referred to as her. She stated, ‘He needs to fireplace you? Ask him if he needs the present to go on the air tonight.’ He did, and I used to be again the subsequent day.”

Presenting the award to Cavett on the digital ceremony was Late Night time‘s Seth Meyers, who additionally appeared in a pre-tape, noting that the honour being given to Cavett is understood to writers as “the award with the longest identify.”

Meyers referred to Cavett as a “true big of late-night tv” who “modified the sport without end” beginning in 1969. “He was and is cerebral, insightful, quick-witted, and type,” stated Meyers. “He all the time had a author’s sensibility and understood that with out writers, there is no such thing as a artwork, media or leisure. That’s what made him particular.”

Watch the speech above.

The Evelyn F. Burkey Award, recognizing somebody who has introduced honor and dignity to writers, was established in 1978 to honor Burkey, who devoted her skilled life to supporting writers, serving to to create the Writers Guild of America, East in 1954, and serving as its government director till her retirement in 1972. Previous recipients of the award embody James Schamus, Edward Albee, Walter Bernstein, Joan Didion, Claire Labine, Walter Cronkite, Arthur Miller, Sidney Lumet and Martin Scorsese.

Cavett is a three-time Emmy winner who has been a member of the Guild since 1961. He launched his profession as a author on The Tonight Present, by means of the interval by which Jack Paar and Johnny Carson hosted, then occurring to jot down for The Jerry Lewis Present. He wrote and hosted the particular The place It’s At, produced by Bud Sorkin and Norman Lear, in 1966—and two years later was employed by ABC to host This Morning, which was later renamed The Dick Cavett Present, shifting to primetime after which to late evening.

The Dick Cavett Present is remembered for breaking new floor in late-night tv, reinventing the method to provide area for counter-culture figures to look earlier than mainstream audiences. All through his time as host, he positioned a highlight on such writers as Alfred Hitchcock, John Cassavetes, Ingmar Bergman, Norman Mailer, Mort Sahl, Mel Brooks, Stephen King, Alice Walker, Steve Martin, Sydney Pollack, Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet, Agnes Nixon, Neil Simon, Buck Henry, Carl Reiner, Dick Gregory, Gene Wilder, George Carlin, George Plimpton, Woody Allen, Harold Ramis, Norman Lear, Peter Bogdanovich, Richard Pryor, Robert Towne, Spike Lee, Marshall Brickman, Terry Gilliam, Nora Ephron, Frank Capra and Joel and Ethan Coen, amongst many others.

The Writers Guild Awards honor excellent writing in movie, tv, new media, information (broadcast and digital), radio/audio, and promotional classes. Sunday’s ceremony was hosted by comic, author and actress Ashley Nicole Black.