Costner Wins Directors Guild Award for ‘Dances With Wolves’

First-time director Kevin Costner won the Directors Guild of America award for best director of 1990 Saturday night for his epic western “Dances with Wolves.”

Costner also starred in the film, a three-hour account of a U.S. cavalry officer living with American Indians. The film won him the Golden Globe award as best director earlier this month.

In Saturday’s competition, Costner beat out veteran director Francis Ford Coppola, who was nominated for the fifth time for “The Godfather, Part III.” Also nominated were Barry Levinson for “Avalon,” Martin Scorsese for “GoodFellas” and Giuseppe Tornatore for “Cinema Paradiso.”

Directors were also honored in several other categories Saturday, including television shows and commercials.

Some of the other awards were presented to:

--James Burrows for best director of a TV comedy series for “Woody Interruptus,” an episode of NBC’s “Cheers.”

--Jeff Margolis for directing the best TV musical variety show, the 62nd Academy Awards program that aired on ABC.

--Elena Mannes for best documentary for “Amazing Grace.”

--Michael Zinberg for “Vietnam,” an episode of NBC’s “Quantum Leap,” for best nighttime TV series.

--Lynn Hamrick for “Testing Dirty,” an ABC Afterschool Special, for best daytime TV dramatic series.

--Roger Young for NBC’s “Murder in Mississippi,” for best TV dramatic special.

The 43rd annual Directors Guild of America awards were presented during ceremonies in Beverly Hills and New York. The guild’s 9,300 members picked the winners.

Last year, Oliver Stone won the guild award for his “Born on the Fourth of July.” Levinson won in 1988 for “Rain Man.”

Tornatore’s film won an Oscar last year for best foreign language film and arrived in U.S. theaters in February, 1990, qualifying for the guild award. It is his first guild nomination.

Coppola’s previous four nominations were for “Apocalypse Now,” “The Conversation” and the previous two “Godfather” films.

Scorsese received his third nomination. He was previously nominated for “Raging Bull” and “Taxi Driver.” “GoodFellas” has been named the best film of 1990 and Scorsese the best director by associations of film critics in New York, Los Angeles and Boston.