March 1, 2000
Assistant Director and Unit Production Manager Cheryl Downey will be the recipient of the Directors Guild of America’s 2000 Frank Capra Achievement Award, DGA President Jack Shea and Awards Committee Chairperson Howard Storm announced today. The Capra Award, given to an Assistant Director or Unit Production Manager in recognition of career achievement and service to the DGA, will be presented to Downey at the 52nd Annual DGA Awards on March 11, 2000, at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.
Downey, who now serves as Unit Production Manager on the series Becker, began her DGA career in 1975, when she graduated from the Guild’s Assistant Directors Training Program. As a DGA Trainee Downey worked on the films Death Race, Gus and The Great Waldo Pepper and the television series Planet of the Apes. She went on to work as an Assistant Director on feature films including ‘Night, Mother; Welcome to Eighteen; Four Friends; Leo & Loree; Ice Castles; Choirboys; Viva Knievel!; Freaky Friday; Pipedreams; Treasure of Matecumbe; and Missouri Breaks. She also served as an AD on movies for television and TV pilots such as One Child, Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound; Are You Lonesome Tonight?; Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?; Consenting Adult; The Prototype; Ghost Dancing; Emergency Room; Desperate Intruder; Bring ‘em Back Alive; Mistress of Paradise; Fugitive Family; Girls in the Office; Cracker Factory; Catalina Sea Lab; and Winds of Kitty Hawk, as well as on the television series Crisis Center, ChiPs; and Hawaii 5-0. As Unit Production Manager, Downey worked on the TV series Dear John; Eisenhower & Lutz; Duck Factory; Ripley’s Believe it or Not; and Built to Last; on the TV movie Nothing Personal; and on the short feature film Point of Departure.
Downey has also served the Directors Guild in various capacities since 1976. She has been a member of the Guild’s Assistant Director/Unit Production Manager (AD/UPM) Council from 1976 to the present, including stints as Council Chairperson (1989), Secretary-Treasurer (1994-95), and First Vice Chairperson (1990, 1992, 1993, 1996-present). She has also been a member of the Guild’s National Board of Directors since 1985. In addition, Downey has been a member of the Board of Directors of the AD Training Program since 1980 (and served as that Board’s Chairperson in 1984 and 1988) and has been a DGA Foundation Trustee since 1990.
Downey was a founding AD/UPM member of the DGA’s Women’s Steering Committee and has also served on many Guild committees including Negotiating Committees and Guild End Credits, Internal Complaints, Equal Opportunity and Safety Committees.