Martha Johnston, a dynamic artist best known for her over 60 movie and television design credits, is set to receive the Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE Local 800) Set Designers & Model Makers Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th Annual ADG Awards. The reimagined gala, set on Saturday, April 10, 2021, will break with tradition in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and will be presented on a virtual platform, streaming to a worldwide and more inclusive audience. The event will celebrate Johnston’s career designing for features, television shows (including the last season of Seinfeld with Tom Azzari), as well as theme park and backlot projects. This is the second of four Lifetime Achievement Awards to be announced by the Art Directors Guild. The event is free to everyone but registration is required.
“We are proud to honor Martha Johnston, whose commitment to the set designer and model maker craft has spanned four decades. For Martha, working with people who value family was a priority. She was able to work on challenging projects and still raise her three children, at times even bringing an infant to work with her. Her achievements are an inspiration to those who follow,” said Kristen Davis, ADG Set Designers & Model Makers Council chair.
Johnston was following in her father’s footsteps when she took a job after studying for three years at CSUN to work on Comes a Horseman where her father was set designer. While still studying at night, she found work on TV shows Quincy, M.E. and Little Women at Universal. In her 40-year career she has also worked at Warner Bros. and MGM. Her additional numerous television credits include programs such as Generation, Hill Street Blues and Seinfeld, as well as the occasional theme park and backlot work in set design and model making.
Johnston’s more than 60 feature credits are equally prestigious and include The Main Event, Xanadu, Pennies from Heaven and Poltergeist. Her additional blockbuster features include Air Force One, The Perfect Storm, The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Planet of the Apes 3, Aquaman, Last Samurai, The Terminal, Star Trek Nemesis, The Call of the Wild, The Story of Us, Elizabethtown, Psycho II, two of the Back to the Future films and Tenet.
As previously announced, Ryan Murphy, one of television’s busiest and most successful writers-directors-producers whose shows have consistently reflected the highest quality of production design, will receive the esteemed Cinematic Imagery Award. ADG Lifetime Achievement Awards are presented to outstanding individuals in each of the guild’s four crafts. Academy Award® and Emmy®-winning production designer Stuart Wurtzel, best known for his work on Hannah and Her Sisters and Angels in America, will receive the ADG Lifetime Achievement Award from the Production Designers and Art Directors Council (AD). The ADG Lifetime Achievement Awards honorees from the Scenic, Title & Graphic Artists (STG), and the Illustrators & Matte Artists (IMA) will be announced shortly.
Producer of this year’s ADG Awards is production designer Scott Moses, ADG. Final online voting will be held through April 7, 2021, and winners will be announced at the virtual gala ceremony on April 10.
Chuck Woolery, host of “Love Connection” and “Scrabble,” dies at 83
Chuck Woolery, the affable, smooth-talking game show host of "Wheel of Fortune," "Love Connection" and "Scrabble" who later became a right-wing podcaster, skewering liberals and accusing the government of lying about COVID-19, has died. He was 83.
Mark Young, Woolery's podcast co-host and friend, said in an email early Sunday that Woolery died at his home in Texas with his wife, Kristen, present. "Chuck was a dear friend and brother and a tremendous man of faith, life will not be the same without him," Young wrote.
Woolery, with his matinee idol looks, coiffed hair and ease with witty banter, was inducted into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in 2007 and earned a daytime Emmy nomination in 1978.
In 1983, Woolery began an 11-year run as host of TV's "Love Connection," for which he coined the phrase, "We'll be back in two minutes and two seconds," a two-fingered signature dubbed the "2 and 2." In 1984, he hosted TV's "Scrabble," simultaneously hosting two game shows on TV until 1990.
"Love Connection," which aired long before the dawn of dating apps, had a premise that featured either a single man or single woman who would watch audition tapes of three potential mates and then pick one for a date.
A couple of weeks after the date, the guest would sit with Woolery in front of a studio audience and tell everybody about the date. The audience would vote on the three contestants, and if the audience agreed with the guest's choice, "Love Connection" would offer to pay for a second date.
Woolery told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2003 that his favorite set of lovebirds was a man aged 91 and a woman aged 87. "She had so much eye makeup on, she looked like a stolen Corvette. He was so old he said, 'I remember wagon trains.' The... Read More