Debbie Allen earned her first Oscar award, and of course, she danced the night away to celebrate. Over the weekend, the multi-hyphenate star received an honorary Oscar award at the Academy’s 16th Governors Awards.
“Thank you. Thank you so much to the academy and the board of governors for this glorious, golden moment in the sun with Oscar,” Allen said in her acceptance speech. “Movies were a way in for me, for my sister [Phylicia Rashad]. We used to watch all the movies, and our imaginations could go and wonder, and we could see ourselves. This is such a profound moment. I’m a student of the classics at Howard University, where I translated Homer and Aeschylus and Sophocles. And I’m acquainted with fate and destiny and deus ex machina and tragic flaw and prophecy. I proclaimed Misty Copeland to be a prophecy come true when she retired from American Ballet Theater. And I’m compelled to call that up again tonight because prophecy comes true. And so maybe I’m one of them too.”
Allen is the third Black actress ever to receive an honorary Oscar, following in the footsteps of Cicely Tyson and Angela Bassett. This year’s ceremony also presented awards to actor Tom Cruise, Dolly Parton, and Wynn Thomas, one of the first Black production designers and art directors in Hollywood films.
“Tonight is a victory. A victory for creativity and courage, resilience, passion, and work…doing the work. Tom [Cruise] and I talked about that. We’ve done the work,” she continued.
And it turns out Cruise and Allen party as hard as they work. After the ceremony, the two honorees were spotted cutting up on the dance floor. So much so, DJ D-Nice invited Cruise to the cookout (though that invitation may still be under review by Black social media users).
For Allen, the award not only honors her career but the many “masters and mentors” that have guided her along the way. Listing names like Alvin Ailey, Richard Pryor, and Tyler Perry, among others, she credited her late parents, Dr. Andrew Arthur Allen Sr. and Vivian Ayers Allen, as her “greatest mentors.”
“[They] raised their children believing that we were citizens of the universe and that there were no boundaries. That anything we could see, we could be. Movies helped us see a lot of that,” she said, reflecting on her upbringing. “We were faced with brick walls, glass ceilings, and white only signs everywhere. But we grew up believing in ourselves. We grew up understanding what fight and faith is.”
“And you have no idea how this award will resonate with the millions of people that are in my orbit. The people right now who need a path of possibility, with some light to find their way. This is going to tell them that they do the work. They can climb that mountain. They can cross that river. They can win like the Dodgers. They got faith. They can stay in the game,” she concluded.
