Nancy Utley Honored at Lupus L.A. Orange Ball

Laura Dern presented to the executive at the Beverly Wilshire event Thursday night, with guests including Jim Gianopulos and Peter Rice.

For a rare moment during her wildly successful run as president of Fox Searchlight Pictures, Nancy Utley took a moment to let the klieg lights shine on her personal role in a cause that was certainly close to home.

Utley was one of the honorees at Lupus L.A.’s annual Orange Ball: A Modern Supper Club at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel Thursday, where 500 guests assembled to relive the swanky, big-band swingin’ days of the supper club as the studio shingle chief, who also lives with lupus herself, received the group’s Daniel J. Wallace Founder’s Award.

Toward the close of an evening emceed by film critic Scott Mantz, actress Laura Dern took the stage to pay tribute to Utley, whose latest critical and box-office successes include The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Twelve Years a Slave and Birdman and whose slate of films have accumulated a staggering 137 Academy Award nominations and 106 Golden Globe nominations.

“She has been the only woman in the room in a male-dominated business for many, many years, and has now run the most successful specialty film company imaginable for 10 years,” said Dern, who then turned to the real reason she jumped at the chance to honor “my friend, my drinking buddy, my dance partner and the last person to leave any party,” recalling a specific evening when the two were at the Telluride Film Festival promoting the film Wild.

“It was one of those typical nights where a reception was given for a film screening and you watch the executives after a long day kind of creep out, scoot out as quickly as possible,” recalled Dern. “And that’s when my deep bond with Nancy began. I heard our director [Jean-Marc Vallee] say, ‘Uh, Nancy, we are going to, I guess, go now.'” And Nancy turned, of course like a movie star in a '40s film, and with a martini in one hand for herself, she passed me a martini that was in her other hand and said ‘Why? Now we get to have a whole other party just for us!’”

“As I’ve lived with this diagnosis for 27 years it took some time to grow from fear and despair to acceptance and optimism,” Utley told the crowd as she accepted the honor. “Sure, there are daily medications and quarterly injections and the occasional setback, but I’m lucky to have first-class health insurance which keeps my disease from being a financial burden, I’m lucky to have a job that gives me flexibility to go to doctors' appointments and to take care of my health, I’m lucky because I have a strong support system of family and friends.”

When approached about receiving the award, Utley said that she was at first reticent, but then “I became intrigued about lending my voice — my strong, relatively healthy voice — to the voice of those who have had it far harder than me.” She related the challenges faced by a pair of young women she’d encountered during various mentoring programs: Carla Hernandez, who attended the event and whom she met as a high school junior who was contending with virtually every identifiable symptom of Lupus, and her flare-ups were truly debilitating,” but who, now in her junior year at the University of Southern California, was well on her way to realizing her dream of being the first person in her family to graduate from college; and Dora Palmer, who has occasionally found herself confined to a wheelchair but has still managed to maintain excellent grades while attending Barnard, on track to graduate magna cum laude.

“I’m inspired by the stories of Carla and Dora because as painful and challenging as they are, they have resulted in academic success and high functionality,” said Utley. “I’m proud of my work with Lupus LA because this organization in trying to make sure that every story has a happy ending.”

Also honored at the event was Dr. Marc Chevrier, Head of Lupus Strategy at Janssen Research and Development — he received the Medical Visionary Award.

The event was attended by top Hollywood executives, including Jim Gianopulos, CEO of Paramount Pictures and event co-chair; Peter Rice, CEO of Fox Networks Group; prolific producer and event chair Lauren Shuler Donner, who has lupus.

“They found it when I was in my very early 30s, and I had had it before then. It was not a disease that anybody was looking for,” Donner told The Hollywood Reporter. “I just want to help all the other people that are fighting, battling this disease. It’s really bad. It’s difficult to function. It can blossom into other things.”

Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Robyn Lawley recalled her own experience discovering that she had lupus. "I had noticed issues like about five years ago, and for me, it was skin related,” she told THR. “Eventually, after having my daughter, my body just went to freefall. My body could barely move, and I had to almost be wheelchaired. They diagnosed.”

“It’s been a year or two since any flares for me,” Lawley added. “It’s back to being at work. I’m really honored to be a model. I’m really grateful to be able to do that job, and I just try to avoid flares at all costs. Obviously, the fashion world is not the most understanding of things like that.”

This Is Us actor Niles Fitch, who plays the young Randall Pearson, also attended, in memory of his father, who lost his own battle with lupus. “Ever since then, I’ve been wanting to find a way I can help others that go through this, and Lupus LA is perfect for that,” said Fitch, who felt gratified “to know that what I went through, and the future that can change for somebody else, if we’re able to find a cure through the funds that we’re going to raise through this.”