Laura Linney Awarded Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service, 4/24

Laura Linney will will be one of many recipients of The Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service at a ceremony on April 24th.

The Common Wealth Awards of Distinguished Service were created under the will of the late Ralph Hayes, an influential American business executive and philanthropist. Hayes conceived the awards to reward and encourage the best of human performance worldwide. Hayes served on the board of directors of PNC Bank, Delaware's predecessor banks from 1935 to 1965. Through The Common Wealth Awards, he sought to recognize outstanding achievement in eight disciplines: dramatic arts, literature, science, invention, mass communications, public service, government and sociology. The awards also provide an incentive for people to make future contributions to the world community.

Several other notable figures will share the distinction, including photographer Annie Leibovitz, Greg Mortrenson, and author Salman Rushdie. Each recipient of The Common Wealth Award receives a $50,000 prize. It is presented at an annual, invitation-only, black-tie dinner hosted at the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware. In their 30-year history, The Common Wealth Awards have conferred $4.4 million in prize money to 165 honorees of international renown. The awards are funded by The Common Wealth Trust.

Past winners of the award include Kevin Spacey, Glenn Close, Mike Nichols, and David Mamet.

Laura Linney can currently be seen on Broadway in the Manhattan Theatre Club's production of Donald Margulies' play Time Stands Still now playing at the Samuel J. Friedman theatre. She received an Academy Award nomination in the lead actress category for her role in the box office hit, The Savages, opposite Phillip Seymour Hoffman and also starred in the critically acclaimed HBO miniseries "John Adams," for which she won an Emmy Award, a SAG Award and a Golden Globe.

Other Films: City of Your Final Destination, opposite Sir Anthony Hopkins; Sympathy for Delicious, with Orlando Bloom and Mark Ruffalo; The Other Man with Liam Neeson and Antonio Banderas; Kenneth Lonergan's You Can Count On Me (Oscar, Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award-winner); The Squid and the Whale (Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award nominations); Kinsey, opposite Liam Neeson and directed by Bill Condon, (Oscar, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations); Love Actually, written and directed by Richard Curtis; Mystic River, directed by Clint Eastwood (Best Supporting Actress in a Drama nomination by The British Academy of Film and Television Arts); Congo; Absolute Power, directed by Clint Eastwood; Primal Fear opposite Richard Gere and directed by Gregory Hoblit; The Truman Show opposite Jim Carrey; The House of Mirth; Lorenzo's Oil; Dave; Searching for Bobby Fischer; A Simple Twist of Fate; The Mothman Prophecies; The Life of David Gale; PS; The Exorcism of Emily Rose; Breach; Man of the Year; Driving Lessons; Jindabyne; The Hottest State and The Nanny Diaries. Televison: "Frasier" (Emmy Award-winner); "Wild Iris" (Emmy Award-winner); "Tales of the City"; "More Tales of the City"; "Blind Spot" and "Love Letters". Broadway: Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuse; Richard Eyre's The Crucible, opposite Liam Neeson (Tony Award-nomination); Donald Margulies' Sight Unseen (Tony Award-nomation); Six Degrees of Separation; The Seagull; Hedda Gable (Calloway Award-winner); Holiday; Honour; Sight Unseen (Theatre World Award-winner, Drama Desk nomination).