LOS ANGELES (AFP) - HOLLYWOOD presented its first Oscars of the awards season late Saturday, honouring screen acting legend Lauren Bacall with a statuette for her life's work in film.

'I can't believe it!' Bacall gushed, as she was awarded the Governor's Award at a ceremony that offered a foretaste of Oscar glitter and glamour.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences also honored director Roger Corman, cinematographer Gordon Willis and producer John Calley at the ceremony attended by an array of Hollywood luminaries - from George Lucas to Quentin Tarantino.

Bacall, one of the most successful screen sirens of the 1940s and 1950s made her screen debut in the classic film 'To Have and Have Not' in which she played the love interest of real-life future husband Humphrey Bogart, to whom she paid homage in her remarks.

'He gave me a life and changed my life,' she said of the 'Casablanca' screen hero to whom she was married from 1945 until his death in 1957.

The Oscar statuettes for most recipients will be given out at a star-studded ceremony on March 7 at Hollywood's Kodak Theater.

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