Warner Bros. TelevisionEllen DeGeneres, the talk-show host and comedian, will receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the Kennedy Center announced today.
DeGeneres, who will be lauded at a ceremony at the Kennedy Center on October 22, is the fourth woman to be awarded the top honor in American comedy since the prize’s inception in 1998. (The ceremony will be taped and later broadcast by PBS.)
In a press release, Kennedy Center chairman David M. Rubenstein said DeGeneres’ “special brand of humor has allowed us to find hilarity in the mundane and has kept us laughing for years.” DeGeneres, 54, has since 2003 hosted an award-winning and eponymous daytime talk show and has also appeared in films like Finding Nemo.
Of course, her most lasting contribution to American entertainment is still the 1997 episode of her sitcom The Ellen Show in which she announced she is gay. DeGeneres is also the second openly gay recipient of the Twain Prize following Lily Tomlin, who won in 2003.
But the heightened conversation in recent days about marriage equality had nothing to do with DeGeneres’ selection, a Kennedy Center producer told The Washington Post. “The Kennedy Center is apolitical. We have had so many people who have their own brand and type of humor,” said Cappy McGarr.
And DeGeneres, in the Kennedy Center’s announcement, was sort of humble: “To get the same award that has been given to people like Bill Cosby, Tina Fey and Will Ferrell, it really makes me wonder… why didn’t I get this sooner?”
