LOS ANGELES, NOV 5: The British film industry brought out many of its top stars here on Saturday including Oscar winner Ben Kingsley and Brenda Blethyn to honour director Steven Spielberg with the Britannia Award for Excellence in Film.His Royal Highness Prince Andrew was on hand to give the award - handed out each year by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Los Angeles - to the director of such films as Jaws, ET" the Indiana Jones, Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan.Accepting the honour while his wife Kate Capshaw, business partner Jeffrey Katzenberg, director Robert Zemeckis and actors Jeff Goldblum, Patrick Stewart, Jane Seymour and many of Hollywood's top stars looked on, Spielberg acknowledged the influence the British film industry has had on movies.He pointed to the impact of films like Lawrence of Arabia, and gandhi for which Kingsley was named best actor in 1982, Chariots of Fire, A Clockwork Orange, and the recent Trainspotting."The British film industry has truly created more than a ripple for the last 65 years. It has been a tidal wave of creativity," Spielberg said.The award was renamed this year as the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award in honour of the late director, who died in 1999 just before his film Eyes Wide Shut, opened in theatres. Spielberg thought it noteworthy that he was only two weeks away from finishing the filming of his new film Artificial Intelligence or AI, which was to have been Kubrick's film.He said he had been friends with the legendary director of films including Clockwork Orange, Lolita and Paths of Glory for 18 years, which meant some very expensive phone bills.The American-born Kubrick lived many of his later years in England and was notorious for calling colleagues at a moment's notice to talk for hours about films and filmmaking.The gathering of about 1000 of Hollywood's top producers, directors and actors filled a room at the posh Century Plaza Hotel in West Los Angeles to pay tribute to Spielberg, paying as much as $500 a plate to be at the event.BAFTA Los Angeles has nearly 700 members. It holds several events in Hollywood each year, but the Brittania Award is one of its grandest events.Prince Andrew joked that he had been in Los Angeles for only a short time, but had seen a tremendous amount of work by Hollywood's elite at the event. "I believe the term is schmoozing," he said.The awards ceremony was to have been hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, but the comedienne was suffering from the flu and failed to show. She was replaced at the last minute by British actor Ian Abercrombie and Blethyn.
