{"id":7707,"date":"2011-06-16T17:35:35","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T21:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=7707"},"modified":"2011-06-16T17:35:35","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T21:35:35","slug":"morgan-freemen-receives-afi-life-achievement-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=7707","title":{"rendered":"Morgan Freemen receives AFI Life Achievement Award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CULVER CITY, CA &#8212; Standing on the soundstage where <strong>Fred Astaire<\/strong> once danced and <strong>Dorothy<\/strong> skipped down the yellow brick road, <strong>Morgan Freeman<\/strong> accepted the American Film Institute&#8217;s Life Achievement Award.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Clint Eastwood<\/strong>, <strong>Sidney Poitier<\/strong>, <strong>Helen Mirren<\/strong>, <strong>Samuel L. Jackson<\/strong>, <strong>Tim Robbins<\/strong> and <strong>Forest Whitaker<\/strong> were among the stars who feted <strong>Freeman<\/strong> during a ceremony Thursday at Sony Studios, former home of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.<\/p>\n<p>The storied Stage 15 &#8212; which AFI Chair <strong>Sir Howard Stringer <\/strong>said was once graced by <strong>Astaire<\/strong> and <strong>Judy Garland<\/strong> in film &#8212; was transformed into an elegant ballroom, its walls draped in red and gold and dotted with giant framed photos of Freeman, whom Poitier introduced as &#8220;a prince of the craft of acting.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a room filled with hundreds of his colleagues and friends, <strong>Freeman<\/strong> listened to star after star share what they admire about him and his work. The 74-year-old Oscar winner sat at the head table near the center of the room, beaming.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jackson<\/strong> told the actor he was inspired by both <strong>Freeman&#8217;s<\/strong> work and his words. &#8220;In a world of too much cubic zirconium, you are the real thing,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Whitaker<\/strong> called <strong>Freeman<\/strong> an &#8220;adviser, a beacon, a confidant, a shoulder to lean on, protector, and friend,&#8221; both in real life and in the characters he has played on film.<\/p>\n<p>The AFI ceremony will air as a special on TV Land on June 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CULVER CITY, CA &#8212; Standing on the soundstage where Fred Astaire once danced and Dorothy skipped down the yellow brick road, Morgan Freeman accepted the American Film Institute&#8217;s Life Achievement Award. Clint Eastwood, Sidney Poitier, Helen Mirren, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Robbins and Forest Whitaker were among the stars who feted Freeman during a ceremony [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}