Lionel Chetwynd

In 2011 he was named Writer of the Year by The Caucus.

In 2008 The Smithsonian Institution/National Portrait Gallery conferred upon him the John Singleton Copley Medal for service to the artistic community and in that same year he received The American Spirit Award, presented by the Caucus for Writers, Producers and Directors in Association with Screen Actors Guild, The Producers Guild, AFTRA and the WGA.

In 2006 he was installed as an Honorary Fellow in the Carl DeSantis Business and Economics Center for the Study and Development of the Motion Picture and Entertainment Industry.

In 2003 Columbia College – Hollywood conferred upon him a Doctor of Humane Letters degree, and in 2004 he received The Caucus of Television Writers, Producers and Directors Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2001, he was appointed to The President’s Committee on the Arts & Humanities.

In 1987, he helped create and he wrote a tribute to the U. S. Constitution as part of the Bi-Centennial celebration staged before members of the U. S. Supreme Court, Congress, and members of the President’s Cabinet.

Lionel Chetwynd was born in London, England, and moved to Canada at the age of eight, growing up in Montreal and Toronto. He left school at age 14, later enlisting in the Black Watch, Royal Highland Regiment of Canada. Upon completion of military service, he gained conditional admittance to Sir George Williams University (Now Concordia), Montreal, B. A. (Honors Philosophy/ Economics), graduating valedictorian after three years and receiving a scholarship to McGill University Law School, where he received his law degree. During that period, while debating at Oxford University as a Champion debater, he was accepted by the University and completed his graduate studies in Law at Trinity College. Chetwynd then joined the London office of Columbia Pictures, remaining four years. By then, he had begun to expand his horizons with freelance writing and his first produced work, “Maybe That’s Your Problem,” staged in London’s West End. Later that year, he wrote “Bleeding Great Orchids,” also staged in London and subsequently Off-Broadway. While in England, Chetwynd wrote the motion picture screenplay adaptation for “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,” and received an Academy Award Nomination and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Feature Comedy. To date he has over 50 feature and long-form television credits, including the Vietnam trilogy: “The Hanoi Hilton,” “To Heal a Nation,” and “Kissinger and Nixon,” as well as the recent Emmy-nominated “Ike: Countdown to D-Day,” which was the highest rated movie ever to air on A&E Networks. He has also written, produced, and directed over 21 documentaries. He has received both Oscar and Emmy nominations, six Writers Guild of American nominations, including an award, the New York Film Festival Gold Medal, two Christophers, two George Washington Freedom Medals, and six Telly Awards. A naturalized U. S. citizen, Chetwynd wrote “The American 1776,” the official United States Bicentennial Film.