from staff
Film Florida Legends announced that Belton Clark, Jerry Smith and the late Richard Norman have been unveiled as the 2010 Legend Award recipients. They will be honored at the Legend Awards event June 22 in Jacksonville.
The Legend award, launched in 2006, honors Sunshine State pioneers in the film, television and production industry.
The recipients made major contributions to the industry.
• Belton Clark, Clark Film Company. Clark’s career as a film distributor spans 40 years and continues to flourish as recently as the Academy Award-winning film “Inglourious Basterds.” In his role, Belton counts The Weinstein Company among his clients, working with brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein.
The Florida-based Clark Film Co. started after Belton and his brother Harry acquired the rights to Allied Artists Films. Under his leadership, he handled releases including “Pulp Fiction,” “Shakespeare in Love,” “Kill Bill,” “Good Will Hunting,” “The English Patient,” “Sling Blade,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “My Left Foot,” “Stanley” and more. His nephew, Troy Clark, serves as the company’s vice president. Belton is looking forward to the release of this summer’s “Pirhana 3D.”
• Jerry Smith, founder and CEO of PineRidge Film & Television. Smith is an internationally recognized writer, producer and director of lifestyle television programs, TV commercials, corporate communications and online content. For more than 35 years, Smith has specialized in the design and execution of Emmy award-winning content and especially programs for cable TV networks, PBS and syndication.
Smith has created and directed promotional campaigns for nearly every major television ownership group in America, including Post-Newsweek, Hearst-Argyle Television, Scripps Networks, PBS, Discovery Networks, CBN, Home and Garden Network, Fine Living, and the Food Network plus ABC, NBC and CBS-owned television stations. Corporate clients include Johnson & Johnson, Walgreens, Miller Brewing Corp., G.E. X-Ray Division, The Waldorf Astoria Hotel and the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
Since 2000, PineRidge has become increasingly identified with travel series for cable networks. Such series as “Great Hotels,” “Passport to Europe,” “Passport to Latin America,” “Girl Meets Hawaii” and “Great Vacation Homes” have played to as many as 400 million households in one day. PineRidge has been the recipient of six national Emmy awards and 11 nominations.
• Richard Norman. Born in rural Middleburg, Richard Edward Norman (1891-1960) began his film production career in 1912. Norman settled in Jacksonville at the height of the town’s heyday as the “Winter Film Capitol of the World” and began making full-length feature films. His first, “The Green Eyed Monster,” was an all-white 1916 drama weaving love and deceit in the railroad industry.
As the movie industry’s first black filmmakers, including Oscar Micheaux and the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, were creating a stir, producing films made with all-black casts in nonstereotypical roles, Norman, who was white, saw a largely untapped business market among black filmgoers and talent.
His films included “Regeneration,” (1923) starring Stella Mayo of the famed Mayo Family Magicians; “Black Gold,” (1928), a greed- and love-fueled story surrounding the oil business; and “The Flying Ace,” (1926), Norman’s most celebrated film, which was restored and is housed at the Library of Congress.
Norman’s legacy is that of a man who sought to integrate an industry long before the mainstream would embrace it. Screenings of “The Flying Ace” at the 2001 Jacksonville Film Festival and at New York’s Lincoln Center in 2009 had audiences laughing and left them aware of the production values of a nearly century-old film.
Today, Norman’s five-building silent film studio complex still stands in the heart of Jacksonville’s historic Old Arlington neighborhood. Working with the City of Jacksonville, the Norman Studios Silent Film Museum Inc. and Old Arlington Inc. aim to support the restoration and reopening of the Norman studio as a museum and a film education center.
Nominees for the Film Florida Legends Award were open to those who have made a significant impact on film in Florida, whether behind the scenes or in front of the camera.
For tickets and more information, visit www.filmflorida.org.