If Sherry Lansing, Paramount's chairman--and the only woman to head a Hollywood studio--had her way, there would be more female cinematographers, more women on crews. But, as she told INC. on her way to pick up an achievement award from Chicago Women in Film, "it's not a perfect world, but we've come an extraordinarily long way."

Lansing, a Chicago native, recalls that some 25 years ago, when she first got in the movie business, "there were no women executives and people didn't take you seriously." More from Lansing:

Stage lights: Chicago talent moves center stage in the nation's capital this spring. "Nomathemba," originally staged at Steppenwolf, will be mounted at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts April 17-May 19 with Eric Simonson directing Ladysmith Black Mambazo in the co-production of the Kennedy Center and New Jersey's Crossroads Theatre. And, from May 14 to 19, Gerald Arpino's Joffrey Ballet of Chicago brings its new "Legends" to the center's opera house.