Los Angeles – October 31, 2019 -- The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has chosen legendary actress/writer/director Elaine May as the recipient of this year’s Career Achievement Award, to be given at the organization’s annual awards dinner on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020, at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City.

LAFCA’s other top awards will be decided by the membership on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2019, and those winners will be honored along with May at the January event.

Elaine May is the director of A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, Mikey and Nicky and Ishtar. An influential writer, filmmaker, actor and comedian, she has twice been nominated for the Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay, for Heaven Can Wait and Primary Colors, and has acted in films including Enter Laughing, California Suite, In the Spirit and Small Time Crooks. She won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play in The Waverly Gallery and received the National Medal of Arts in 2013.

"Elaine May is a legend,” said LAFCA president Claudia Puig. "A brilliant multi-talented artist, she has brightened our lives with her extraordinarily funny body of work and has moved us with her collaborations with Nichols, Cassavetes and Beatty and, most recently, her Tony Award-winning turn on stage. We’re grateful for all her wonderful artistry, including her often uncredited, but essential, screenplay contributions. May is a creative force whom the Los Angeles Film Critics Association is thrilled to honor."