I’d say Elia Kazan who won a controversial lifetime achievement award, and John Sayles who has been nominated, but I believe never has won, for best screenplay.

By the way, both Sayles and Strathairn would be worthy recipients of bicentennial medals (I don’t think either has won) and Strathairn would be a pretty cool commencement speaker — alum, high profile this year, in a role that has reverberations beyond mere entertainment (particularly in this political climate), he would certainly be an entertaining speaker given that he is an actor, not a guy who would give a canned speech I’d imagine, and also, he has a life story tailor-made for a commencement speech — acting in a supporting role, in near-obscurity, for years and years until the right opportunity came along, so he is well qualified to discuss perseverance, etc.

Kazan won Academy Awards for best director of “Gentleman’s Agreement” and “On the Waterfront”.

Legend has it that Sayles was offered an honorary degree and he told the administration, “Get a life.”

Not sure if it’s true but it does seem to fit in with his “cut to the chase” persona.

I sat behind him on a shuttle from Boston to Newark a number of years ago. The stewardesses avoided him like the plague since he had his denim shirtsleeves rolled up like a construction worker and he was the only one on the plane not wearing a suit. His powers of concentration were amazing. He did a ton of work and paid no nevermind to what was going on.

I was able to glance at what he was working on and it was the screenplay of what eventually became Lone Star. I caught up with him after we deplaned and told him I enjoyed his work; he was gracious and thanked me. I later wrote up the trip report and entitled it, “Trip to Bell Labs (and My Encounter with John Sayles)” and achieved some minor fame due to his fans in the company forwarding it around.

How many of this board’s correspondents would respond with “get a life” when offered an honorary degree from Williams?

I think that:

1) The most recent winner was Elia Kazan ‘31 for “his indelible contributions to the art of motion picture direction.”

2) The most recent nominee but loser is a tie. Adam Schlesinger ‘89 for best original song for “That Thing You Do” and John Sayles ‘72 was nominated for best screenplay for Lone Star, both in 1996. Sayles was also nominated for Passion Fish in 1992.

If we were really cool, we would figure out a way to connect the alumni database to things like the academy awards database in order to figure out every Eph nominee. Alas, we are not that cool.

Corrections and additions are welcome.

David: Not only am I not cool, but I am luke warm and fetid.