2007 Award Recipient

Award-winning screenwriter Robert Benton will be honored as this year's recipient of the Writers Guild of America West's coveted Screen Laurel Award to be presented at the 2007 Writers Guild Awards ceremony on February 11, 2007.

“What an impressive and varied screenwriting career Robert Benton has had. Yet what hasn't varied is the quality of his work and audiences' appreciation of it,” said WGAW President Patric M. Verrone.

A six-time Writers Guild Award nominee over his decade-spanning career, Benton has garnered four WGA statuettes over the years for his signature screenplays, including Bonnie & Clyde (Best Screenplay Written for the Screen and Best Written American Drama, 1969), What's Up Doc? (co-written with Buck Henry and David Newman, Comedy Written for the Screen, 1973), and Kramer vs. Kramer (Drama Adapted From Another Medium, 1979). Benton has also received WGA nominations for screenplays, Bad Company (co-written with David Newman, 1973), The Late Show (1978), Superman (co-written with Mario Puzo and David & Leslie Newman, 1979), and Places in the Heart (1985). In 1995, the WGAE honored Benton with its Ian McLellan Hunter Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Writing.

Triple Academy Award-winner and six-time Oscar nominee Benton was raised in Waxahachie, Texas, earned his BFA degree from the University of Texas, and moved to New York for his Master's at Columbia University. He went to work at Esquire as the assistant to the magazine's art director before being drafted into the Army, where he was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas. Benton returned to Esquire after his discharge from the service, and was soon promoted to art director. While at Esquire he co-authored The In and Out Book with Harvey Schmidt.

In 1966, his first screenplay, Bonnie and Clyde, co-written with David Newman, went into production with Arthur Penn directing. That same year, the Benton-Newman-penned musical, It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman!, opened on Broadway. The success of Bonnie and Clyde resulted in a contract for the writing partners with Warner Brothers, for whom Benton and Newman first scripted There Was a Crooked Man, as well as classic screwball comedy hit, What's up Doc with Buck Henry. Benton then made his directorial debut with Bad Company, co-written with Newman, and later wrote and directed the acclaimed The Late Show. In 1978, Benton re-teamed with Newman, as well as Newman's wife Leslie, to pen the screenplay for the box-office hit, Superman. Benton's next project, Kramer vs. Kramer, adapted from Avery Corman's bestselling novel, won the Academy Award for Best Picture and earned Benton two Oscars in 1980, for Best Screenplay and Best Director.

Benton's prolific writing career also includes such films as Still of the Night, Nadine, Places in the Heart, which earned him an Oscar for best original screenplay, and Billy Bathgate, based on the novel by E.L. Doctorow. He also directed Nobody's Fool, which he adapted from the novel by Richard Russo and which was nominated for an Academy Award for adapted screenplay. He went on to direct Twilight, which he co-wrote with Richard Russo. Benton also directed The Human Stain and co-wrote The Ice Harvest with Richard Russo. Most recently, Benton completed directing the upcoming film, Feast of Love.

Awarded to a guild member who has advanced the literature of the motion picture and made outstanding contributions to the profession of the screenwriter, the Screen Laurel has been received by such esteemed writers as Billy Wilder, Horton Foote, Preston Sturges, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, John Huston, Blake Edwards, Mel Brooks, John Michael Hayes, David Mamet, and last year's honoree, Lawrence Kasdan.