By Robert Goldrich
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. --For the second consecutive year, Kim Gehrig of Somesuch has won the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award recognizing Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials, This time around, during a gala awards ceremony on Saturday evening (2/10) at the Beverly Hilton, Gehrig earned the Guild honor on the strength of two entries: "Run This Town," a client-direct spot for Apple; and Expedia's "The Travelers" out of Wieden+Kennedy.
Last year Gehrig became just the second woman director to win the DGA's spotmaking award. The first was Melina Matsoukas of PRETTYBIRD three years ago. Now Gehrig becomes the first woman to win the honor twice.
In her acceptance remarks, Gehrig thanked the DGA for making her "feel so supported," her collegues at Somesuch, including company founding partners Sally Campbell and Tim Nash, and first assistant directors David Webb and Zaida Fakih who worked, respectively, on "Run This Town" and "The Travelers."
Gehrig also expresed gratitude to her fellow nominees in the commercials category: Martin de Thurah of Epoch Films; Seb Edwards of Park Pictures; Craig Gillespie of MJZ; and Andreas Nilsson of Biscuit Filmworks. She credited all their work with inspiring her,
Gehrig additionally gave a shout-out to Greta Gerwig, who was in the audience as a DGA Award feature film nominee for Barbie. Gehrig thanked Gerwig for being a major source of inspiration to her and many others.
James Earl Jones, Lauded Actor and Voice of Darth Vader, Dies At 93
James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen — eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, "The Lion King" and Darth Vader — has died. He was 93.
His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home in New York's Hudson Valley region. The cause was not immediately clear.
The pioneering Jones, who was one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama and worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors and was given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.
He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for a Broadway run of "The Gin Game" having already memorized the play and with notebooks filled with comments from the creative team. He said he was always in service of the work.
"The need to storytell has always been with us," he told The Associated Press then. "I think it first happened around campfires when the man came home and told his family he got the bear, the bear didn't get him."
Jones created such memorable film roles as the reclusive writer coaxed back into the spotlight in "Field of Dreams," the boxer Jack Johnson in the stage and screen hit "The Great White Hope," the writer Alex Haley in "Roots: The Next Generation" and a South African minister in "Cry, the Beloved Country."
He was also a sought-after voice actor, expressing the villainy of Darth Vader ("No, I am your father," commonly misremembered as "Luke, I am your father"), as... Read More