Megyn Kelly Delivered Opening Remarks at Star-Studded Event Presented by Lifetime
Emma Stone and Simone Biles Presented Scholarships Provided by Chuck Lorre Family Foundation
Eva Longoria, Lea Michele and Felicity Huffman among Those in Attendance to Celebrate Accomplishments of Women in Hollywood
LOS ANGELES, December 7, 2016 – The Hollywood Reporter hosted its 25th Annual Women in Entertainment Breakfast today, honoring Tina Fey with the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award and Ryan Murphy with the inaugural Equity in Entertainment Award. The event – which was held at Milk Studios in Los Angeles – was presented by Lifetime, and coincides with the publication of The Hollywood Reporter’s annual Power 100 Women in Entertainment list.
Jon Hamm presented Fey with the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, which recognizes female pioneers and leaders in her industry. With nine Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, and four Writers Guild of America Awards and a book that topped The New York Times Best Seller list for five weeks, Fey has proven she is a force to be reckoned with in the industry.
“I have been thinking over the last month, how can we proceed with dignity in these increasingly ugly times. And it occurred to me that Sherry is the perfect role model. Talk about someone who remained graceful and effective in what must have been an incredibly misogynistic environment,” said Fey as she gave credit to Sherry Lansing who was in the room. And yet she was able to flourish and lead, with all her humanity and femaleness intact. Maybe we can all make that our mantra over the next four years. ‘What Would Sherry Lansing Do?’” she joked.
Fey joins a long line of distinguished women in the industry who have been awarded the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, including Barbra Streisand, Shonda Rhimes, Oprah Winfrey, Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Dame Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, Halle Berry, Jodie Foster, Glenn Close and Barbara Walters.
Industry veterans Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon presented Ryan Murphy with the inaugural Equity in Entertainment Award, which recognizes an individual who has remained committed to greater inclusion of women and people of color in the entertainment industry. In 2016, Murphy launched Half, a foundation within his 20th Century Fox TV-based production company that aims to have 50 percent of all director slots on his shows filled by women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ community.
“It was an honor to celebrate Tina and Ryan today, because they both exemplify what this event is all about. They use their enormous influence to question, drive and impact the status quo, while also being incredibly entertaining and smart both in front of the cameras and behind them,” said Janice Min, president and chief creative officer of The Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group.
Prior to the awards presentation, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly delivered the opening remarks to the group.
“There’s no time for wallowing. We have got to get to work. We’ve got to do better. We have to be better. We have to settle for more,” said Kelly. “The past year has convinced me that our charge as women, our next charge and our important charge, is to lead by example – to be our most internally powerful within ourselves, our most inspirational, amazing selves so that others around us see what a woman really is, especially when tough times hit.”
Guests in attendance included Eva Longoria, Lea Michele, Felicity Huffman, Jane Lynch, Constance Zimmer, Michelle Monaghan, Shiri Appleby, Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Kathy Griffin, Rita Wilson, Maria Menounos, Kelly Rowland, Omarosa Manigault, Niecy Nash, Kate Walsh, and Taissa and Vera Farmiga.
Award-winning actress Emma Stone and five-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles presented university scholarships to schoolgirls currently taking part in The Hollywood Reporter’s storied Women in Entertainment Mentorship Program, now in its seventh year. Each of the 16 girls in the program were awarded $10,000 scholarships to attend the university of their choice. Three girls received a full-ride scholarship, each worth more than $200,000, to attend Loyola Marymount University; one scholarship was provided by 1-2-3 Go! Entertainment and two scholarships were provided by the Chuck Lorre Family Foundation. Additionally, one of the event sponsors, American Airlines, gifted each mentee with 50,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® miles to help them travel from their hometowns to their future universities.
Since the program’s inception in 2008, The Hollywood Reporter has raised nearly $4 million in scholarships for the high school girls who have participated in the program. Previous mentors in the program include high-powered executives such as NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke, Fox Television Group chairman/CEO Dana Walden, Paramount Pictures president of worldwide distribution and marketing Megan Colligan, and Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley.
The Hollywood Reporter debuted a first-time Instagram Stories video booth at this year’s Women in Entertainment Power 100 event. Throughout the event, Hollywood’s most-inspirational women stepped into the Instagram Stories video booth to share 15 seconds of advice to their younger selves.https://www.instagram.com/hollywoodreporter/
The Women in Entertainment Breakfast was sponsored by Lifetime, American Airlines, Mercedes-Benz, The Outnet, SAG-AFTRA, Gersh, Loyola Marymount University, Entertainment Industry Foundation, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles.
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About The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter is the entertainment industry’s flagship media brand. With in- depth reporting, analysis, unprecedented access, world-class photography and video, and feature exclusives, The Hollywood Reporter is the definitive source for breaking entertainment and business news. THR won a 2016 Webby Award for best online film and video in the entertainment category and the American Society of Magazine Editors National Magazine Award for General Excellence in the Special Interest category in 2015 and 2016 in addition to a 2015 and 2016 ASME National Magazine Award nomination for Magazine of the Year and a Gerald Loeb Award nomination for its Studio Chiefs Roundtable. Additionally, the brand took home 10 SoCal journalism awards in 2015 and seven in 2016, including Entertainment Journalist of the Year. In 2014, The Hollywood Reporter staff won Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards for The Hollywood Reporter in Focus: The Wolf of Wall Street. The Hollywood Reporter and SundanceTV partner to co- produce and broadcast “Close Up With The Hollywood Reporter,” an original non-fiction series featuring panels with potential Emmy and Oscar nominees. In June 2016, The Hollywood Reporter launched a new feature, the THR 100, ranking the 100 most powerful people in Hollywood. THR‘s platforms include an award-winning weekly magazine, dynamic web and mobile sites, a huge social media footprint, and glittery year-round events.
The Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group reaches more than 25 million US users a month online per ComScore, with a social footprint of more than 20 million, ranking number 4 among comScore entertainment-news properties in October 2016, delivering news to an audience of industry power players and consumers deeply invested in entertainment content. Follow The Hollywood Reporter on Twitter @thr, on Facebook at facebook.com/HollywoodReporter, on Instagram @hollywoodreporter, and on Snapchat at thrsnaps.
About Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television
Movie industry moguls helped establish Loyola Marymount University’s (LMU) current campus on the bluffs above west Los Angeles in the 1920s. By 1964, LMU was formally teaching film and television curriculum, and in 2001, the School of Film and Television (SFTV) was established as its own entity. Today, SFTV offers students a comprehensive education where mastering technical skills and story is equally important to educating the whole person, including the formation of character and values, meaning and purpose. SFTV offers undergraduate degrees in animation, production, screenwriting and recording arts; minors in film and television studies, animation and screenwriting, and graduate degrees in production, screenwriting, and writing and producing for television. Selected LMU alumni include Francis Lawrence, Brian Helgeland, Barbara Broccoli, James Wong, Jack Orman, John Bailey, Bob Beemer, Francie Calfo, Lauren Montgomery and Van Partible, among others. Get more information at sftv.lmu.edu or facebook.com/lmusftv.
