US director, producer and screenwriter Martin Scorsese has been awarded Spain's prestigious Princess of Asturias Award for the arts.
In a career spanning over five decades, Scorsese has become one of Hollywood's all-time greats with renowned films such as Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), Gangs of New York (2002), The Departed (2006) - for which he won the Academy Award for best director - and more recently The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
Scorsese was born in New York in 1942 to a family of Sicilian origin and spent his early years in Little Italy.
The 50,000-euro ($A85,400) award announced on Wednesday is the first of eight prizes - also including social sciences, sports and scientific research- handed out annually by a foundation named for Crown Princess Leonor.
Australian Associated Press
