Quincy Jones receives honorary Oscar posthumously

Before his death two weeks ago, American musician and producer Quincy Jones wrote a speech he intended to deliver at the Governors Awards, where he was scheduled to receive an honorary Oscar at the ceremony created by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

On Nov 17 night in Hollywood, his actress daughter Rashida Jones delivered that speech on his behalf before a rapt audience.

"As a teenager growing up in Seattle, I would sit for hours in the theatre and dream about composing for films," she said, while channelling her father, who was a black trailblazer in Hollywood. "When I was a young film composer, you didn't even see faces of colour working in the studio commissar1es."

Nominated seven times, Quincy Jones was given a different honorary Oscar - the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award - in 1995, back when these awards were still part of the televised Oscar broadcast. To shorten that show, the honorary awards were spun off into their own event in 2009.

Though the Governors Awards are not televised, they still attract an A-list crowd that rivals any major ceremony.

Stars Jennifer Lawrence, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Lopez staked their seats out early while directors Luca Guadagnino (representing both Challengers and Queer, 2024) and Brady Corbet (The Brutalist, 2024) compared notes on film formats.