Awards to Honor Child Star Fred Savage and his Mom

The CARE Awards will honor an unusual duo in Hollywood: actor/director Fred Savage and his mother, Joanne Savage. The Awards will be held Sunday, April 13 at Universal Studios Hollywood. The Savages will receive the honor alongside 150 current child actors who have demonstrated that they are handling the business of Hollywood well.

Hollywood, CA (PRWEB) March 30, 2008 -- The BizParentz Foundation announced today that their guest of honor will be a twosome for the first time: a former child actor and his mom. The duo will be honored at the CARE Awards which will be held Sunday, April 13th at Universal Studios Hollywood.

"We are just thrilled that both Joanne and Fred, along with their families will be able to join us as our honored guests! Family is what the awards are all about, and this is a family that did everything right -- the Savage children not only grew up to be successful professionals, but they are great people as well. In Hollywood that is no small feat".     Past recipients of the award have included Justin Shenkarow, Margaret O'Brien, and Joey Lawrence.    

Joanne Savage supported the careers of three successful showbiz children, Ben, Fred and Kala. She also held leadership positions with the Screen Actors Guild Young Performers Committee and more recently, with The Actors Fund Looking Ahead Program, which serves families of teen young performers.    

Fred Savage may be best known for his childhood role in the long running series, "The Wonder Years", but a lot has happened since then. He got a degree in English from Stanford University, and then returned to Hollywood for adult acting roles in the series' "Working" and "Crumbs".

But directing is where Savage's interests lie these days. With credits on practically every top series at Disney and Nickelodeon, he has become one of the hottest directors in the market today.

Most recently, he has directed episodes of Aliens in America, Disney's Wizards of Waverly Place, the pilot Mongoose and Luther, and he made his feature debut with Daddy Day Camp last year. He was nominated for a Directors Guild Award last month, and is awaiting the birth of his second child with wife, Jennifer Stone. But wait ... he tops that off with the announcement last week that he has been cast as the lead in his own pilot for CBS, "Single White Millionaire". Busy guy!
    
The idea of honoring a director and his mother is unusual, to be sure. But the CARE Awards are unusual across the board. At first glance, CARE, aka Child Actor Recognition Event, looks like a typical Hollywood red carpet awards show. But CARE requires that even their 150 child honorees bring something to the table. To receive a CARE award, child actors must have worked professionally in 2007, kept a 3.0 grade point average in school, done community service, and written an essay. Additional criteria include acting study, union membership, clean online presence and an art project. Their parents must also prove their worth -- they have to pass a written quiz that incorporates questions addressing current events like the issues involved in the writer's strike, and naming states that have child labor laws.    

The Savages will join awardees this year that include a hot slate of child stars including Jason Dolley (Disney's Minutemen and series regular on Cory in the House), Dominic Janes (star of the series Out of Jimmy's Head), Field Cate (series regular on Pushing Daisies) and Madison Davenport (starring in the upcoming Kitt Kittredge: An American Girl with Abigail Breslin). This year, the awardees include a child actor with a disability for the first time, 14-year-old R.J. Mitte, who has been critically acclaimed for his role in the AMC series, Breaking Bad.

Proceeds from the event benefit the BizParentz Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to education, advocacy and charitable support to parents and children engaged in the entertainment industry. Find their website, along with photos of past CARE events, at www.bizparentz.org. For more information, contact BizParentz Foundation at (818)731-9897 or by email at bizparentz@aol.com.

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