Happy Rum Sponsors Film Florida 5th Annual Legends Awards

Jacksonville, FL — Film Legends Belton Clark, Jerry Smith, and Richard Norman (posthumous) were honored as the 2010 Film Florida Legend Awards.  The event was held at the WJCT Television Studios downtown as crowds enjoyed Happy products and other exclusive Liquor Group crowd pleasers such as Ocean Vodka, Fat Ass Tequila, Columbus Rum, Rhythm Liqueur and Happy Rum.  Chefs from the Art Institute Culinary Academy served up gourmet dishes to the crowd, while a jazz band toiled the night away with soothing tunes from a bygone era.

The Legend award, which was launched in 2006, honors Sunshine State pioneers in the film, television and production industry.  The recipients this year have made major contributions to the industry, including:

Belton Clark’s 40 year career as a prolific film distributor continues to flourish, with releases as recently as the academy award winning film Inglourious Basterds.  The Florida-based Clark Film Co. has handled releases including Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love, Kill Bill, Good Will Hunting, The English Patient, Sling Blade, Bridget Jones Diary, My Left Foot, Stanley among many others, including the upcoming release of this summer’s Pirhana 3D.

Jerry Smith has worked for over 35 years as an internationally recognized writer, producer, and director of lifestyle television programs, TV commercials, corporate communications and online content, specialized in the design and execution of Emmy award-winning content for cable TV networks, PBS and syndication for Post-Newsweek, Hearst-Argyle Television, Scripps Networks, PBS, Discovery Networks, CBN, Home and Garden Television Network (HGTV), Fine Living, Food Network plus ABC, NBC and CBS-Owned Television Stations. His series Great Hotels, Passport to Europe, Passport to Latin America, Girl Meets Hawaii, and Great Vacation Homes have played to as many as 400 million households in just one day. Under Smith, PineRidge Studios has been the recipient of six national Emmy awards and 11 nominations.

Richard Edward Norman (1891-1960) began his film production career in 1912, settling in Jacksonville at the height of the town’s heyday as the “Winter Film Capitol of the World” and began making full-length feature films. His first, The Green Eyed Monster (1916) was an all-white drama weaving love and deceit in the railroad industry. As the movie industry’s first black filmmakers, including Oscar Micheaux and the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, were creating a stir, producing films made with all-black casts in non-stereotypical roles, Norman, who was white, saw a largely untapped business market among black filmgoers and talent. His films included Regeneration (1923) starring Stella Mayo of the famed Mayo Family Magicians; Black Gold (1928), a greed- and love-fueled story surrounding the oil business; and The Flying Ace (1926), Norman’s most celebrated film was restored and housed at the Library of Congress.  Norman’s five-building silent film studio complex still stands in the heart of Jacksonville’s historic Old Arlington neighborhood.