(Washington) Comedian Billy Crystal and singer Dionne Warwick are among the five artists who will receive the prestigious Kennedy Center award this year.
Others who have been shortlisted for Kennedy Center honors include opera singer Renee Fleming, 1970s music icon Barry Gibb and rapper and actress Queen Latifah.
All will be honored at the traditional ceremony at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington on December 3.
Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter called this year’s inductees “an extraordinary mix of individuals who have redefined their art forms.”
Crystal, 75, rose to prominence in the 1970s playing Jodie Dallas, one of the first openly gay characters on American television, on the sitcom Soap.
He then spent a brief but memorable year on Saturday Night Live before starring in a string of films, including the hits When Harry Met Sally…, The Princess Bride and City Slickers.
Billy Crystal, who also received the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Award for Lifetime Achievement in Comedy in 2007, joins a select group of comedians who have won both the Mark Twain Award and Kennedy Center Honor: David Letterman , Steve Martin, Lorne Michaels, Lily Tomlin, Carol Burnet and Neil Simon. Bill Cosby also received both accolades, but they were rescinded in 2018 following his sexual assault conviction.
For her part, Dionne Warwick rose to fame in the 1960s as the muse of star composers Burt Bacharach and Hal David. She said her pride in receiving the honor would be mixed with “a bit of sadness because Burt and Hal won’t be there.” Bacharach died in February and David died in 2012.
Warwick’s discography includes a string of decades-long hits, with and without Bacharach, which includes I Say a Little Prayer, I’ll Never Love This Way Again and That’s What Friends Are For.
