Oprah Getting an Oscar

It was a big night for The King's Speech and the supporting stars of The Fighter. Check out the actors who went home with the gold on Hollywood's biggest night.

Oprah Winfrey’s supposed talks to host the 84th Annual Academy Awards, rumors surfaced everywhere about the potential details. My personal favorite was the suspicion that Ms. Winfrey might take to the stage and proclaim to the entire audience, “You get an Oscar, and you get and Oscar, and you get an Oscar!”

It may only be August, but awards season is right around the corner. And the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has kicked things off in a big way: by announcing that Oprah Winfrey will be one of the recipients of an Honorary Oscar.

So why's the recently retired Queen of Daytime getting honored?

Winfrey, who took a time out from earning boatloads of Emmys to nab an Oscar nomination for her performance in The Color Purple, will receive the coveted Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her off-screen philanthropy. The Academy specifically cited such good deeds as her eponymous foundation, her Angel Network and her South African girls school.

Joining Winfrey in collecting special statuettes at the Academy's 3rd Annual Governors Awards on Nov. 12 will be Darth Vader himself, James Earl Jones.

The acclaimed actor, who has appeared in over 50 films, made his big-screen debut back in 1964 in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and earned a Best Actor nomination for 1970's The Great White Hope. His voice work, as Vader in the Star Wars trilogy and Mustafa in The Lion King, is as iconic as his acting. He will receive an Honorary Oscar.

Rounding out the trifecta of recipients is legendary makeup man Dick Smith. NBC's in-house artist launched his career in 1945, earning the nickname the Godfather of Makeup.

You might have caught his artistry in films like The Godfather, The Exorcist, Taxi Driver and Amadeus, which earned him an Oscar. He also has mentored generations of other greats, including fellow Academy Award winners Rick Baker (Men in Black, An American Werewolf in London), Greg Cannom (Titanic, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Kevin Haney (Driving Miss Daisy, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). He, too, will get an Honorary Oscar.

Congrats!