Talent Manager Association Announces Dates and Lifetime Achievement Honors for 2016 Heller Awards

The 14th Annual Talent Managers Association (TMA) Heller Awards will once again be held in the iconic Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, home of the Golden Globes. The ceremony will take place on Thursday, November 10, 2016. Now in its fourteenth year, the awards recognize industry professionals in the areas of management, agent representation and casting. It is an opportunity for celebrities to honor those who have helped to guide and shape their careers.

Previously, William Shatner and Joan Rivers presented manager Larry Thompson with the Heller Awards' most prestigious honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award for Management. He has represented Shatner for nearly 40 years and managed Rivers' career for many years before her death in 2014. At the 2015 ceremony, television darling Betty White honored her longtime agent Jeff Witjas with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Agent Representation. "When you're lucky enough to have a fine agent who knows the business and knows what he's doing, who also happens to be a very dear blessed friend, you're the luckiest old broad on the planet," said White in an interview with Variety.

This year, the TMA will honor Craig Fincannon with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Casting and Jack Gilardi with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Agent Representation.

Fincannon founded Fincannon and Associates, Inc. in 1970. His firm has worked with clients including 20th Century Fox, Disney, and Columbia, and has worked as Location Casting Director on over 125 feature ?lms, over 150 ?lms made for television, 37 episodic series, countless pilots and series, and hundreds of national and international commercials.

Gilardi has been an agent for over 60 years, starting in 1954 with General Artists Corporation, which would later become Creative Management Associates, which would then merge with International Famous Agency in 1975 to form ICM Partners. He has represented clients in the fields of motion pictures, television, publishing, music, theatre, branded entertainment and digital media. His roster includes iconic artists such as Shirley MacLaine, Ann-Margret, Joe Mantegna, Jaclyn Smith, Frankie Avalon and Kristian Alfonso. Throughout his career, Gilardi has been equally devoted to community service, fundraising for charitable causes such as cancer research, National MS Society, Motion Picture Relief Fund, and Encino Little League. His efforts have been honored by City of Hope, the Leukemia Foundation, the Italian government, the Cancer Concern Foundation, and the city of Encino with a ballfield bearing his name. Gilardi organizes weekend softball games for the Hollywood Entertainment League and spearheads the annual Hollywood Stars Game at Dodger Stadium.

TMA President, Daryn Simons, expressed her excitement for the ceremony. "The Heller Awards are fourteen years strong, and I am excited to honor our colleagues in the entertainment industry, the agents and casting directors, without whom we couldn't help our clients build their careers."

Founded in 1954 as the Conference of Personal Managers, the TMA is a non-pro?t, self-regulating organization that promotes the highest ethical business standards of professional integrity and behavior in the practice of talent management. Membership in the organization signi?es a manager is a skilled professional within the industry of talent, artist, literary or music management, and subscribes to the established TMA Code of Ethics.

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