Editor

Tony and Emmy Award Winning Actor Hugh Jackman will be honored by Museum of the Moving Image at its 27th annual Salute on December 11, 2012 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. The news was announced today by Carl Goodman, the Museum’s Executive Director.
 
Goodman stated, “We are thrilled to be honoring one of the world’s most beloved and talented performers.”
 
Hugh Jackman is perhaps best known around the world as Wolverine in the X-Men series, and has starred in films for such directors as Baz Luhrmann (Australia), Woody Allen (Scoop), Christopher Nolan (The Prestige), and Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain). Later this year, he will headline as Jean Valjean in the eagerly awaited screen version of the musical epic Les Misérables from acclaimed director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech), set for a December 14th release.
 
As comfortable on stage as he is on screen, Jackman has seen additional success on Broadway with credits including the musical The Boy From Oz (for which he won Tony, Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World Awards), his recent one-man show Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway, and the drama A Steady Rain opposite Daniel Craig. In addition to serving as Tony Awards host for three consecutive years from 2003 – 2005 (his second appearance earned him an Emmy Award, and the final garnered an Emmy nomination), Jackman brought hishoned skills to Hollywood where he hosted the 81st Annual Academy Awards in 2009.
 
Hugh Jackman joins the ranks of past honorees who have received the Museum’s Salute, including Alec Baldwin, Tom Cruise, Clint Eastwood, Robert DeNiro, Goldie Hawn, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, Mike Nichols, Al Pacino, Sidney Poitier, Julia Roberts, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg.
 
Funds raised from the Salute support the programs, exhibitions, and educational activities of Museum of the Moving Image. The education programs, which include curriculum-basedtours, screenings, and workshops, serve nearly 60,000 students per year.
 
The MMI Salute to Hugh Jackman is produced by Scott Mauro Entertainment, Inc; Scott Mauro, Executive Producer.  This is the second consecutive MMI event produced by Scott Mauro Entertainment following the Salute to Alec Baldwin.
 
For press information on the MMI Salute To Hugh Jackman, please contact:
Gary Springer at Springer Associates PR, 212-354-4660, gary@springerassociatespr.com.
 
For information about the Museum of the Moving Image, please contact:
Tomoko Kawamoto at 718.777.6830, tkawamoto@movingimage.us           
 
For ticket information for the Museum of the Moving Image Salute to Hugh Jackman, contact:
Ellin Delsener at Event Associates at 212-245-6570, edelsener@eventassociatesoinc.com
 
 
 
 
 
 
HUGH JACKMAN ______________________________
A BIOGRAPHY
 
Australian native HUGH JACKMAN made his first major U.S. film appearance as Wolverine in the firstinstallment of the “X-Men” franchise, a role he reprised in the enormously successful X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006. Most recently in the franchise, he played Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which serves as a prequel to the popular series and grossed an outstanding $85 million domestically in its first weekend of release in May 2009. Audienceswill again see Jackman in the popular role in the next X-Men chapter titled The Wolverine, which is currently filming in Australia.
 
Jackman recently wrapped production on the much-anticipated film adaptation of Les Misérables, directed by Tom Hooper (of The King’s Speech), co-starring Anne Hathaway and Russell Crowe. The film is currently slated for a December 2012 release.
 
In October 2011, Jackman made his return to the Big Way in his one-man show “Hugh Jackman – Back on Broadway”. Backed by an eighteen-piece orchestra, the revue, which previously opened to rave reviews during its limited engagements in San Francisco and Toronto earlier that year, was comprised of both Broadway hits and a selection of some of his personal favorite standards. Although the show ran only until the end of the year, Jackman’s continued dedication to the Broadway community was feted at the 2012 Tony Awards, where he received a Special Award from the Tony Awards Administration Committee, recognizing his accomplishments both as a performer as well as a humanitarian. 
 
Most recently on the big screen, Jackman starred in Dreamworks’ Real Steel. Directed by Shawn Levy, this thrilling story is set in the near future where 2,000-pound human-looking robots do battle and led the box office two weeks in a row in the fall of 2011.
 
In the fall of 2009, Jackman made a return to Broadway in the Keith Huff penned “A Steady Rain.” Co-starring Daniel Craig, the play tells the story of two Chicago cops who are lifelong friends and whose differing accounts of a few traumatic days change their lives forever.
 
On February 22, 2009, Jackman took on the prestigious role of hosting the 81st Annual Academy Awards. Live from the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, he wowed those inattendance and helped ABC score a 13% increase in viewership from the previous year. This wasn’t, however, Jackman’s first foray into Awards show hosting. Previously, Jackman served as host of the Tony Awards three years in a row from 2003 – 2005, earning an Emmy Award for his 2004 duties at the 58th Annual ceremony, and an Emmy nomination for his 2005 appearance at the 59th Annual ceremony. 
 
In late 2008, Jackman appeared in 20th Century Fox’s romantic action-adventure epic Australia directed by Baz Luhrmann. The film, set in pre-WWII northern Australia, sees Jackman as a rugged cattle driver who assists an English aristocrat (played by Nicole Kidman) in driving a herd of 2000 cattle across hundreds of miles ofrough terrain where they must also face the Japanese bombing of Darwin, Australia.
 
Additionally, Jackman has starred in Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, and Woody Allen’s Scoop. In addition, he lent his voice to the animated features Happy Feet and Flushed Away. Otherfilms in which he has had leading roles include Deception, Someone Like You, Swordfish, Van Helsing, and Kate and Leopold, for which he received a 2002 Golden Globe nomination.
 
For his portrayal of the 1970s singer-songwriter Peter Allen in “The Boy From Oz,” Jackman received the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actor in a musical as well as Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World awards.
 
Previous theater credits include “Carousel” at Carnegie Hall, “Oklahoma!” at the National Theater in London (Olivier Award nomination), “Sunset Boulevard” (MO Award - Australia's Tony Award) and Disney's “Beauty and the Beast” (MO Award nomination).
 
Jackman's career began in Australia in the independent films Paperback Hero and Erskineville Kings (Australian Film Critics' Circle Best Actor award and The Australian Film Institute Best Actor nomination).  In 1999, he was named Australian Star of the Year at the Australian Movie Convention.