Editor

The Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) announced today that Glenn Close will receive the Golden Icon Award at this year’s Festival,  which takes place from September 28 to October 8, 2017.

The Golden Icon Award is the Festival’s most prestigious symbol of recognition, in appreciation of the lifetime achievements of an actor or actress. Glenn Close will be honored with the award on Sunday October 1.

Ms Close will also present her latest film, THE WIFE with her co-stars Jonathan Pryce and Annie Starke and director Björn Runge.

Behind any great man, there’s always a greater woman … and you’re about to meet her. It is crucial you get to know this woman – many of us already do and don't even realise it. 

Joan Castleman (Glenn Close): a highly intelligent and still-striking beauty - the perfect alpha wife. Forty years spent sacrificing her own talent, dreams and ambitions to fan the flames of her charismatic husband Joe (Jonathan Pryce) and his skyrocketing literary career. Ignoring his infidelities and excuses because of his "art" with grace and humour. 

Their fateful pact has built a marriage upon uneven compromises. And Joan’s reached her breaking point. On the eve of Joe’s Nobel Prize for Literature, the crown jewel in a spectacular body of work, Joan's coup de grace is to confront the biggest sacrifice of her life and secret of his career.  The Wife is a poignant, funny and emotional journey; a celebration of womanhood, self-discovery and liberation. 

ZFF Co-Directors Nadja Schildknecht and Karl Spoerri state “We’re honored to present Glenn Close with our Golden Icon Award at this year’s Festival. From her commanding portrayal of Patty Hewes in Damages to the glorious Marquise de Merteuil in Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons via Alex Forrest and Cruella De Vil, Glenn Close has brought her extraordinary presence to countless memorable roles over a truly formidable career. We are delighted to welcome her to Zurich and screen her latest film THE WIFE.”

Credit Suisse is the official partner of the Golden Icon Award.

A six-time Academy Award nominee, Ms Close has recently completed filming on Julian Fellow’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Crooked House alongside an all-star cast that included Max Irons, Christina Hendricks, Gillian Anderson and Terence Stamp. Other recent films include the sci-fi thriller What Happened to Monday, The Girl With All the Gifts, Wilde Wedding and the comedy Bastards.

Ms Close reprised her Tony Award-winning role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Sunset Boulevard in a new production at the London Coliseum in 2016 (bringing her a London Evening Standard Award and an Olivier Award nomination). The full production, starring Close, opened on Broadway in February 2017.

Ms Close made her feature film debut in George Roy Hill's The World According to Garp, earning her awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review as well as her first Academy Award nomination. She was subsequently Oscar-nominated for The Big Chill, The Natural, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons (for which she was also a BAFTA Award nominee) and Albert Nobbs (which earned her Golden Globe and SAG nominations). For Albert Nobbs, Close also wrote the screenplay with John Banville, was a producer on the film and composed the lyrics for the Golden Globe and World Soundtrack-nominated song, “Lay Your Head Down.”

Her film credits also include Richard Marquand's Jagged Edge, Barbet Schroeder's Reversal of Fortune, Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet, István Szabó's Meeting Venus, Ron Howard's The Paper, Stephen Herek's 101 Dalmatians, Kevin Lima's 102 Dalmatians, Wolfgang Petersen's Air Force One, Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune, Rose Troche's The Safety of Objects, Merchant Ivory's Le Divorce, Chris Terrio's Heights, Rodrigo García's Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her and Nine Lives, Evening, Low Down, 5 to 7, Anesthesia, The Great Gilly Hopkins and Guardians of the Galaxy.

For her riveting portrayal of high-stakes litigator Patty Hewes in the critically acclaimed television series Damages, Close won two consecutive Emmys as “Best Actress in a Drama Series” and two subsequent Emmy nominations (bringing her total number of Emmy nominations to twelve) along with a Golden Globe Award and three SAG Award nominations.   Close’s twelve Golden Globe nominations include a Best Actress win for Andrei Konchalovsky's adaptation of The Lion in Winter (which also earned her a SAG Award).

Other television credits include her Emmy award winning role in Serving in Silence: the Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (for which she also received a Peabody Award as executive producer), South Pacific and Sarah, Plain and Tall, both of which she also executive produced, The Shield, The Elephant Man, Something About Amelia, Stones for Ibarra, The Ballad of Lucy Whipple and In the Gloaming, for which she won a CableACE Award.

Close made her theatre, and Broadway, debut in Harold Prince's revival of Love for Love. Her theater credits include The Crucifer of Blood, The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs (Obie Award), Barnum (Tony nomination) and Tony Awards for her performances in The Real Thing and Death and the Maiden, both directed by Mike Nichols. In London, she reteamed with the director of the original Sunset Boulevard stage production, Trevor Nunn, in his Royal National Theatre revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. She returned to Broadway for the 2014 revival production of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance.

Worldwide sales for THE WIFE are handled by Embankment Films.

Brokered by Embankment Films – Silver Reel, Creative Scotland, Film Väst, Chimney, the Swedish Film Institute and Svensk Filmindustri financed THE WIFE.  Tempo Productions, Silver Reel, Meta Film, Anonymous Content, Spark Film and Television have produced THE WIFE.

 Headshot Brigitte Lacombe