OSCAR® & MULTI-GRAMMY® AWARD WINNING ENTERTAINMENT LEGEND LIONEL RICHIE TO PUT HANDPRINTS-FOOTPRINTS IN CEMENT MARCH 6 AT TCL CHINESE THEATRE IMAX® FORECOURT

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HOLLYWOOD, CA–On March 6, superstar singer-songwriter LIONEL RICHIE will put his handprints and footprints in cement at the TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX® in Hollywood and thus receive the oldest award in Hollywood.

Lionel has sold more than 100 million albums and is the recipient of countless awards, including four Grammy Awards®, an Academy Award® and a Golden Globe Award. In December, he was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors and is currently a judge for the beloved music competition series “American Idol.”

“Oh my God this is absolutely incredible,” says Richie.

“This is my Hollywood dream come true.  Of all the Hollywood awards, this is the one I can share with the public forever.”

The TCL Chinese Theatre handprints ceremony is rich in tradition and provides the over six million people a year who visit the site an opportunity to experience the lore of Hollywood up close, for here lay the handprints and footprints of Hollywood’s most notable talents.

Movie exhibitor Sid Grauman, who was one of Hollywood’s best known and most creative showmen, opened The TCL Chinese in 1927 and launched the handprint ceremony a year later, as a promotion to advertise his many premieres and first run films.

Recent celebrants have included Jessica Chastain, Robert De Niro, Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, directors Ridley Scott, Kenneth Branagh and Quentin Tarantino and two-time Oscar® winners Jennifer Lawrence and Jane Fonda, MGM’s “Leo the Lion,” The “Twilight” stars, Robert Duvall, Kim Novak, the late Peter O’Toole, Helen Mirren, Sandra Bullock, Jerry Lewis, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.

Among the first handprints and footprints were those of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.

Within a few years of its debut, the famous forecourt on Hollywood Boulevard was flourishing and has since become an international tourist destination attracting six million visitors a year to the world’s most famous movie palace.

About Lionel Richie

Lionel has sold more than 100 million albums and is the recipient of countless awards, including four Grammy Awards®, an Academy Award® and a Golden Globe Award. This December, Lionel will be honored at the Kennedy Center Honors.  Lionel will be a judge for the beloved music competition series “American Idol” for its first season on ABC in 2017 and 2018.

In February 2016, he was honored as the 2016 MusiCares^®Person of the Year prior to the 58th Annual GRAMMY Awards®. Lionel has also been recognized with some of the world’s most significant honors, including honorary doctorates from Boston College and Tuskegee University, a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the United Negro College Fund (making him the first recipient to graduate from a UNCF school), and remains an active member of one of the most prestigious fraternities in history, Alpha Phi Alpha. In addition, he won ASCAP’s “Publisher of the Year” and “Lifetime Achievement Award,” as well as 16 American Music Awards, five People’s Choice Awards, A World Music Lifetime Achievement Award, TV Land Icon Award, Germany’s Echo Award for Lifetime Achievement, Hong Kong’s Rojo Award, Goldene Kamera Award, Italy’s San Remo Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences Governors Award, and more. He received the Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian Award presented at Harvard University. He’s been inducted to both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and knighted in France receiving the Legionnaire Award. Always giving back, his charity work extends from Breast Cancer Research Foundation and Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center to UNICEF and The Art of Elysium.

Songwriters Hall of Fame honored Lionel Richie as the 2016 recipient of the esteemed Johnny Mercer Award at the 47th Annual Induction and Awards Dinner in June. The Johnny Mercer Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Songwriters Hall of Fame, is exclusively reserved for a songwriter or songwriting team who has already been inducted in a prior year, and whose body of work is of such high quality and impact, that it upholds the gold standard set by the legendary Johnny Mercer.  Lionel Richie was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994.

With his most recent All the Hits, All Night Long Tour, Lionel sold out arenas worldwide with a set list of his brightest and best anthems. In recent years Lionel also headlined Bonnaroo, Outside Lands, and Glastonbury, drawing the festival’s biggest crowd ever with over 200,000 attendees.

Last summer Lionel embarked on the 35-city North American ALL THE HITS TOUR with very special guest Mariah Carey.  He returned to Vegas performing on the Axis Theater stage at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino for his All The Hits residency in December.

About the TCL Chinese Theatres (www.tclchinesetheatres.com):

Since 1927, The TCL Chinese Theatre, the most famous movie theatre on the globe, has been world-renowned for its unique forecourt of the stars, featuring cement hand and footprints of major movie stars.  In 2013, the main theatre was relaunched as the world’s largest IMAX® theatre.