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Kennedy Center Honors
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The Kennedy Center Honors is an annual honor given to those in the performing arts for their
lifetime of contributions to American culture. The Honors have been presented annually since 1978 in Washington, D.C., during gala weekend-long events which culminate in a performance for—and honoring—the Honorees at the Kennedy Center Opera House.
The Honors were created by George Stevens, Jr. and the late Nick Vanoff; as of 2008, Stevens remains involved as producer and co-writer for the Honors Gala.
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Encyclopedia
The Kennedy Center Honors is an annual honor given to those in the performing arts for their
lifetime of contributions to American culture. The Honors have been presented annually since 1978 in Washington, D.C., during gala weekend-long events which culminate in a performance for—and honoring—the Honorees at the Kennedy Center Opera House.
The Honors were created by George Stevens, Jr. and the late Nick Vanoff; as of 2008, Stevens remains involved as producer and co-writer for the Honors Gala. From 1978 until 2002, the ceremony was hosted by Walter Cronkite; since 2003, it has been hosted by Caroline Kennedy.
Selection process
Each year the Kennedy Center's national artists committee and past honorees (such as Carol Burnett and Bill Cosby) present recommendations for proposed Honorees to the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The selection process is kept secret, though "certain criteria seem apparent: a mix of artistic disciplines, the inclusion of men and women, minority recognition."
The announcement is made in the Fall, with the ceremony held over a weekend in early December. Highlights from the gala performance are televised on CBS between Christmas and the New Year. The 2008 honorees were announced on September 9, 2008, and the ceremony was held on December 7, 2008.
The events
The weekend-long ceremony consists of lunch, dinner, reception and a performance introducing and honoring the new Honorees. The lunch is on Saturday at the Kennedy Center, with a welcoming speech by the President of the Board of Trustees. At that evening's reception and dinner at the State Department, presided over by the Secretary of State, the year's Honorees are introduced. On Sunday, there is an early evening White House reception with the President of the United States, who will then hang a specially designed ribboned award around their necks.
The performance takes place Sunday evening at the Opera House in the Kennedy Center; the Honorees (wearing their medals) and guests sit in the front of the Box Tier, a few seats away from the President and the First Family. The Honorees do not appear on stage nor do they speak to the general audience. The show consists of events from the recipients' lives, presented documentary style in film and live onstage, with the complete list of guest performers kept unpublicized until the show is in progress. George Stevens, Jr. said: "Our tradition of surprises and surprise guests is particularly special..." For example, for Dolly Parton, a 2006 Honoree, Jessica Simpson, Carrie Underwood, Kenny Rogers, Alison Krauss and Shania Twain performed. The pre-taped portion of the presentations typically include excerpts from the honoree's work, donated by rights' holders, with revenues generated by the occasion supporting the nonprofit arts and education activities of the Kennedy Center.
The Honors Gala is "really two different shows", according to George Stevens, Jr., its producer; the priority is on the 2300-member audience in the Opera House, some of who pay over $6000 for their seats, a source of revenue that provides (as of 2005) almost 10% of the center's annual contributions.
History
The Kennedy Center Honors were conceived in 1977, in the wake of that year's 10th-anniversary White House reception and Kennedy Center program for the American Film Institute (AFI). Roger Stevens, the founding chairman of the Kennedy Center, asked George Stevens, Jr. (no relation), the founding director of AFI, to have an event for the Center; George Stevens got Isaac Stern involved, then pitched the idea to CBS, who "bought it."
Recipients
There have been 163 recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors Awards during the Honor's first 31 years, mostly for their individual contributions. Eight times since 1985 awards have gone to artistic collaborators, including three married couples: lyricist Alan Jay Lerner & composer Frederick Loewe, actors Hume Cronyn & Jessica Tandy, musical-comedy duo Betty Comden & Adolph Green, the Nicholas Brothers (Fayard & Harold), actors Paul Newman & Joanne Woodward, Kander and Ebb (John Kander & Fred Ebb), actors Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee, and musicians Pete Townshend & Roger Daltrey of The Who.
1970s
1980s
- 1980 — Leonard Bernstein, James Cagney, Agnes de Mille, Lynn Fontanne, and Leontyne Price
- 1981 — Count Basie, Cary Grant, Helen Hayes, Jerome Robbins, and Rudolf Serkin
- 1982 — George Abbott, Lillian Gish, Benny Goodman, Gene Kelly, and Eugene Ormandy
- 1983 — Katherine Dunham, Elia Kazan, Frank Sinatra, James Stewart, and Virgil Thomson
- 1984 — Lena Horne, Danny Kaye, Gian Carlo Menotti, Arthur Miller, and Isaac Stern
- 1985 — Merce Cunningham, Irene Dunne, Bob Hope, Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe, and Beverly Sills
- 1986 — Lucille Ball, Hume Cronyn & Jessica Tandy, Yehudi Menuhin, Antony Tudor, and Ray Charles
- 1987 — Perry Como, Bette Davis, Sammy Davis Jr, Nathan Milstein, and Alwin Nikolais
- 1988 — Alvin Ailey, George Burns, Myrna Loy, Alexander Schneider, and Roger L. Stevens
- 1989 — Harry Belafonte, Claudette Colbert, Alexandra Danilova, Mary Martin, and William Schuman
1990s
- 1990 — Dizzy Gillespie, Katharine Hepburn, Risë Stevens, Jule Styne, and Billy Wilder
- 1991 — Roy Acuff, Betty Comden & Adolph Green, Fayard & Harold Nicholas, Gregory Peck, and Robert Shaw
- 1992 — Lionel Hampton, Paul Newman & Joanne Woodward, Ginger Rogers, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Paul Taylor
- 1993 — Johnny Carson, Arthur Mitchell, Sir Georg Solti, Stephen Sondheim, and Marion Williams
- 1994 — Kirk Douglas, Aretha Franklin, Morton Gould, Harold Prince, and Pete Seeger
- 1995 — Jacques d'Amboise, Marilyn Horne, B.B. King, Sidney Poitier, and Neil Simon
- 1996 — Edward Albee, Benny Carter, Johnny Cash, Jack Lemmon, and Maria Tallchief
- 1997 — Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, Charlton Heston, Jessye Norman, and Edward Villella
- 1998 — Bill Cosby, Fred Ebb & John Kander, Willie Nelson, André Previn, and Shirley Temple Black
- 1999 — Victor Borge, Sean Connery, Judith Jamison, Jason Robards, and Stevie Wonder
2000s
- 2000 — Mikhail Baryshnikov, Chuck Berry, Plácido Domingo, Clint Eastwood, and Angela Lansbury
- 2001 — Julie Andrews, Van Cliburn, Quincy Jones, Jack Nicholson, and Luciano Pavarotti
- 2002 — James Earl Jones, James Levine, Chita Rivera, Paul Simon, and Elizabeth Taylor
- 2003 — James Brown, Carol Burnett, Loretta Lynn, Mike Nichols, and Itzhak Perlman
- 2004 — Warren Beatty, Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee, Elton John, Joan Sutherland, and John Williams
- 2005 — Tony Bennett, Suzanne Farrell, Julie Harris, Robert Redford, and Tina Turner
- 2006 — Zubin Mehta, Dolly Parton, Smokey Robinson, Steven Spielberg, and Andrew Lloyd Webber
- 2007 — Leon Fleisher, Steve Martin, Diana Ross, Martin Scorsese, and Brian Wilson
- 2008 — Morgan Freeman, George Jones, Barbra Streisand, Twyla Tharp, and Pete Townshend & Roger Daltrey
In 2006, the tribute to Dolly Parton included a botched performance of 9 to 5 by Jessica Simpson, a performance omitted from the televised version of the gala, reportedly at Simpson's request.
Those not honored
Pianist Vladimir Horowitz was to be an honoree, but the selection committee withdrew the offer when Horowitz conditioned his acceptance on being honored alone and at 4 in the afternoon. Actress Katharine Hepburn declined the committee's first offer, though she relented in 1990.
The Center, criticized for not honoring composer Irving Berlin, paid tribute to him at the 1987 Gala.
Paul McCartney was selected as an honoree in 2002, an award postponed a year when McCartney was unable to attend because of an "inescapable personal obligation"; in August 2003 the Kennedy Center issued a one-sentence statement saying that "Paul McCartney will not be receiving a Kennedy Center Honor."
Other who have not been honored include John Cage, Orson Welles, and Marlon Brando.
Criticism
In 1995, columnist Frank Rich of The New York Times called the award the "Kennedy Center Dishonors", with particular criticism for the Honors Gala:
- Perhaps the Kennedy Center Honors should just be laughed off as Washington's own philistine answer to Hollywood's Golden Globes, and let it go at that. But in a country that honors culture so rarely, this annual presentation of lifetime achievement awards is by default a big deal. It's the only national event celebrating the performing arts as distinct from show business. Yet it has fallen so far in esteem even within the arts community that A-list performers are more likely to show up on the Honors' various committee lists than on stage or even in the audience at the gala.
See also
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