Four cinematic veterans – actor and singer Harry Belafonte, actress Maureen O’Hara, director Hayao Miyazaki and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere – have been honored at the Governors Awards in Los Angeles.

Among those paying tribute were Ron Howard, Sidney Poitier, Warren Beatty and Reese Witherspoon.

Harry Belafonte, 87, was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his activism.

The musician was a prominent civil rights campaigner and friend of Martin Luther King Jr., who he helped financially support during his fight against segregation.

Among his humanitarian work Harry Belafonte has been a UNICEF ambassador and a campaigner on HIV in Africa, as well as supporting prostate cancer charities since he was successfully treated for the disease in 1996.

“Artists are the radical voice of civilization,” Harry Belafonte said in his speech at the Governors Awards event.

Harry Belafonte, Hayao Miyazaki, Jean-Claude Carriere and Maureen O’Hara have been honored at the Governors Awards in Los Angeles

“I really wish I could be around for the rest of this century, to see what Hollywood does with the rest of the century. Maybe, just maybe, it could be civilization’s game changer.”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) also handed lifetime awards to Hayao Miyazaki, Maureen O’Hara and Jean-Calude Carriere.

Hayao Miyazaki, 73, has been Oscar nominated three times for his dark animations, winning the animated feature award in 2002 for Spirited Away.

Introducing the Japanese director to the stage, John Lasseter said: “Miyazaki is the most original artist ever to work in our medium.”

Although Maureen O’Hara, 94, never received an Oscar nomination during her career she appeared in many much-loved films including Our Man in Havana, The Parent Trap and The Quiet Man, which won director John Ford an Academy Award and also starred John Wayne.

Maureen O’Hara was introduced by Liam Neeson and Clint Eastwood, who recalled being cast alongside the actress in a film in which she rode on a horse.

“My fantasies were going really wild,” he said, before revealing he was ordered off set before the scene was shot.

Jean-Claude Carriere is a prolific screenwriter who has worked on films in many languages including French, German and English, including Cyrano de Bergerac, Hotel Paradiso, Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum), The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Goya’s Ghost.