Eddie Awards: Lauren Shuler Donner & Others Set For ACE Career Honors

X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner is among four people set for special honors at the 70th annual ACE Eddie Awards. They and the American Cinema Editors trophy winners will receive their hardware during the ceremony next week.

Shuler Donner will receive ACE’s Golden Eddie Award, and film editors Alan Heim and Tina Hirsch are set for the Career Achievement Award. Cathy Repola, National Executive Director of the Motion Picture Editors Guild, will receive ACE’s Heritage Award, which recognizing an individual’s commitment to advancing the image of the film editor, cultivating respect for the editing profession and dedication to ACE.

“This year’s Career Achievement and Heritage Award honorees have immeasurably contributed to the legacy of ACE and the craft and business of film editing,” ACE President Stephen Rivkin said. “It’s a very special year for us to be recognizing their achievements.”

During her four-decade career, Shuler Donner established herself as one of the most successful and versatile producers in Hollywood. To date, her movies have grossed more than $7 billion worldwide. Along with the X-Men films and their spinoffs, her producing résumé ranges from Mr. Mom and Pretty in Pink to the Free Willy movies and You’ve Got Mail to the Deadpool pics, along with TV’s Legion and The Gifted. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2008.

“Lauren Shuler Donner is nothing short of a dynamo,” the ACE board of directors said in a statement. “Her films have grossed billions worldwide and engaged audiences for almost 40 years. She is responsible for some of the most exciting franchises in film history and consistently champions great storytelling in all mediums. We are thrilled to celebrate her career thus far and can’t wait to see what she’ll do next.”

Oscar winner Heim has cut films for such celebrated directors as Sidney Lumet, Mel Brooks, John Hughes and Milos Foreman. He won an Academy Award for editing Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz (1973) and was Oscar-nominated for Lumet’s Network. With credits also including American History X and The Notebook, he received the Camerimage Special Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2012.

Hirsch made history in 2000 when she was elected as the first female president of American Cinema Editors. After making her film editing debut on Macon County Line (1974), her work caught the eye of Roger Corman, who hired her to edit his mid-’70s pics Big Bad Mama, Death Race 2000 and Eat My Dust. Her film credits also include More American Graffiti, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Gremlins, Dante’s Peak and TV’s Party of Five and The West Wing, earning one of her two Emmy nominations for the latter in 2000.

Repola has served the Motion Picture Editors Guild in several top leadership roles since 1992 and has been its National Executive Director since 2016. In July, she re-upped with MPSE for another five years. Repola made headlines in 2018 for leading her local’s staunch resistance to the contract that IATSE worked out with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. That led to a bitter public feud with IATSE boss Matthew Loeb after the MPSE’s board voted to urge its members to reject the deal, which eventually was ratified. “We were the only IATSE local that voted against ratification,” she wrote to her members afterward.

The Good Place actress D’Arcy Carden will host the 70th ACE Eddie Awards on January 17 at the Beverly Hilton.