The primiere Hollywood event took place last night, with thousand-dollar gowns, Harry Winston jewels — and an unusual cloud of controversy surrounding the annual Lifetime Achievement Award.

This year’s recipient was 89-year-old Elia Kazan, director of some of the most acclaimed works of the ’50s and ’60s.

Kazan directed classics such as “On the Waterfront,” “Streetcar Named Desire,” “Splendor in the Grass” and “East of Eden.” He worked with actors such as James Dean, Natalie Wood and Marlon Brando, coaxing memorable performances from the Hollywood legends.

But that isn’t why some members of the academy vowed to greet his Lifetime Achievement Award with a steely silence.

Kazan also cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee during the 1950s, when Hollywood was besieged by the wave of paranoid McCarthyism.

Like many prominent actors, directors and writers, Kazan was threatened with losing everything he had worked for in the movie industry. So he named names, and he didn’t apologize for his actions afterwards, noting that he had to cooperate with the committee to keep his career.

Kazan, who has refused to comment publicly on the controversey, is undeniably one of the most prolific directors in American cinema. He is talented, and like the majority of academy members, he isn’t a saint. No one expects him to be.

And it’s true that the Lifetime Achievement Award honors Kazan’s work, which is undeniably impressive. Nothing he has done in his personal life can take away his positive contributions to film, nor can it take away the Oscars he already possesses.

But the award also recognizes his contributions to the movie industry as a whole, and when he talked to the committee, he sacrificed the careers of an untold number of Hollywood talents to save his own.

It was a desperate thing to do, certainly not a noble one. His decision, and the decisions of so many like him, so affected his peers that many of them were never able to work again.

It is understandable why Kazan, and so many others, succumbed to the era’s suspicion. He didn’t want his career to end, and even years after the Red Scare had faded, he didn’t apologize for his actions. It was a political era, and a difficult one to try to survive in.

If having his award greeted with silence is the least indignity Kazan suffers after his role in the McCarthy hearings, he should consider himself lucky.