Star Maker Awards 2024

Yaacov Heller

2024 Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient

We are thrlled to announce that internationally renowned artist Yaacov Heller will be the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award  at NSAL’s Star Maker Awards Dinner at Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club in Boca Raton on Tuesday, March 26, 2024.

Yaacov has been rated among the world’s most accomplished sculptors and top silversmiths. His work has been used to convey messages of hope, tolerance, acceptance,  remembrance, and peace through the interpretation of the human form and spirit while holding to his personal unwavering commitment to artistic quality. Throughout his sixty-year career, he has been commissioned to create historically significant works for presidents, kings and queens, heads of state and other dignitaries and celebrities. Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Hosni Mubarak, Benjamin Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, Jacque Chirac, Yitzhak Rabin, and Anwar Sadat are among the many world leaders who have owned pieces bearing the artist’s signature. Works are found in presidential libraries and museums worldwide.

Arlene Herson

2024 Honorary Chair

2023 Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient

We are delighted that last year's Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Arlene Herson will be returning at Honorary Chair of the 2024 Star Maker Awards Dinner.

Herson produces and hosts the award-winning syndicated cable television program, “The Arlene Herson Show.” The talk show features in-depth interviews with nationally known personalities including Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis, Jr., Vic Damone, Danny DeVito, Phyllis Diller, Suzanne Somers, Perry Como, Malcolm Forbes, Mel Torme, Chuck Norris, Tony Randall, Harry Belafonte, Linda Evans, Neil Sedaka, Regis Philbin, and many more. 

In the nonprofit realm, she has been recognized numerous times for her outstanding contributions to beloved causes. 

Nationally, she was honored on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC with the Leadership Award by the Wings of Memory Society of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; served as National Chair of the Legacy of Light Society of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Herson also served as an interviewer for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation, videotaping first-hand testimonies of Holocaust survivors.

In 2004, Arlene received a five-year appointment from President George W. Bush to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council, the governing body of the museum in Washington, D.C. , and she was appointed by President George H. W.  Bush to the Take Pride in America Advisory Board.

Locally, Arlene has been very active in our community, dedicating herself to numerous worthy charities.

As a result, she has received many awards including an Opal Award from the Rotary Club of Boca Raton and the George Long Award from the Rotary Club Downtown Boca Raton

Organizations that have benefitted from her contributions include the Boca Raton Historical Society, Miami City Ballet, Boca Raton, Alzheimer’s Brain Bowl, Rotary Club Downtown Boca Raton, Theatre Lab at FAU, Live at Lynn at Lynn University, and of course NSAL and our Star Maker Awards.