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In announcing the award, the Guild’s national president Steven Poster, ASC said, “Nanci is my definition of a hero. In the midst of a remarkable career representing some of Hollywood’s top stars, she learns that she has ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. But instead of feeling sorry for herself she has led efforts and raised money to help others suffering from this debilitating sickness.”

For more than three decades Nanci Ryder earned a reputation as one of the entertainment industry’s most influential publicists, with an ability to recognize and cultivate emerging talent. Ryder provided public relations counsel for such clients as Renée Zellweger, Michael J. Fox, Reese Witherspoon and Leonardo DiCaprio, and during the formative years of such rising stars as Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore, Sarah Jessica Parker and scores of other top Hollywood talent. She mentored many of the mainstays in talent public relations, some of whom have since established impressive practices of their own. At the time of B|W|R’s sale to WPP in October 1999, she had helped build B|W|R into one of the largest, independently owned entertainment public relations firms.

Apart from her professional leadership, Ryder became an outspoken advocate of breast cancer support following her own diagnosis in 2000, serving as a tireless campaigner for fundraising and research. She beat cancer in a year, but would apply the same fierce determination to another life-threatening disease when she was diagnosed with bulbar onset ALS in 2014. She has thus lost the ability to talk and walk, but her fight for a cure remains unchanged. Since 2014, Ryder has led "Team Nanci," comprised of industry peers, friends and colleagues, raising more than $433,000 for the ALS Association and its Golden West Chapter. The organization honored her efforts in 2016 by presenting her with a Heroes Award, one of many distinctions she has received throughout her career for her charitable efforts.

Winners will be announced at the luncheon ceremony on Friday, February 24, 2017. 

About THE PUBLICISTS OF THE ICG
Entertainment publicists first formed a union in 1937 as the Screen Publicists Guild, later becoming the Publicists Guild. In 2002 the Publicists Guild merged with the International Cinematographers Guild (Local 600). The first Publicists Awards Luncheon was held in 1962 and has since grown to an event attended annually by up to 900 publicists and industry leaders. Many of the greatest actors, directors and executives have accepted the Motion Picture and Television Showmanship Awards and Lifetime Achievement Awards and include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, Julie Andrews, Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, Carol Burnett, Kirk Douglas, Stanley Kramer, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, Bob Hope and Shonda Rhimes. In addition, the members honor their own through the Maxwell Weinberg Awards for publicity campaigns, the Bob Yeager Award for Community Service and the Les Mason, the greatest honor to be paid to a publicist. The Guild also publishes the Annual ICG Publicists Membership Directory, which is given out at the Annual ICG Publicists Awards.

About THE INTERNATIONAL CINEMATOGRAPHERS GUILD (ICG)
The International Cinematographers Guild (IATSE Local 600) represents more than 7,800 members who work in film, television and commercials as Directors of Photography, Camera Operators, Visual Effects Supervisors, Still Photographers, Camera Assistants, Film Loaders, all members of camera crews and Publicists. The first cinematographers union was established in New York in 1926, followed by unions in Los Angeles and Chicago, but it wasn’t until 1996 that Local 600 was born as a national guild. ICG’s ongoing activities include the Emerging Cinematographer Awards and the Publicists Awards Luncheon. The Guild also publishes the award-winning ICG Magazine www.ICG600.com.

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