Toronto's Norman Jewison, pictured here in Los Angeles in 2009, is a Companion of the Order of Canada and was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 1999.Toronto's Norman Jewison, pictured here in Los Angeles in 2009, is a Companion of the Order of Canada and was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 1999. (Dan Steinberg, file/Associated Press)

Filmmaker Norman Jewison became the first Canadian ever to get a lifetime achievement prize from the Director's Guild of America.

The guild honoured the best in film at a gala in Los Angeles on Saturday night.

With the honour, the 83-year-old Jewison joined the likes of Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood, who have all been granted the accolade.

In the guild’s 73-year history, only 32 directors have been recognized with the accolade.

Jewison, who maintains an office in Santa Monica, Calif., while also living near Toronto on a farm, got his start as a children's show script writer at the BBC before joining CBC Television as an assistant director for musicals, comedy-variety shows, dramas and specials in the early 1950s.

CBS in New York City recruited him in 1958; there he directed variety shows such as Your Hit Parade.

In 1962, Jewison directed his first film, Forty Pounds of Trouble, a comedy starring Tony Curtis . He never looked back.

He followed that up with a few lighter movies and then moved onto drama with 1965's The Cincinnati Kid, starring Steve McQueen.

Jewison really hit the big time in 1966 with the cold war comedy The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, which resulted in four Academy Award nominations, including for best picture.

Not ready to retire

Among his many acclaimed films are In the Heat of the Night, The Thomas Crown Affair, Fiddler on the Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar, A Soldier's Story and Moonstruck.

The director says although the award is appreciated, it doesn't signal his retirement, either.

"Just remember John Ford and Howard Hawks and Billy Wilder and John Huston and Willy Wyler," Jewison told The Toronto Star. "They all kept making movies after the world considered them obsolete."

Back in 1992, Jewison was made a Companion of the Order of Canada and in 1999, he was given the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In 2004, Jewison was appointed chancellor of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, a position he continues to hold today.

He is also the founder of the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto, which provides professional development for filmmakers, actors and producers in Canada.