On Saturday, June 5, the 43rd Kennedy Center Honors will be held in Washington, D.C. This annual event follows a tradition of honoring five individuals or entities within the performing arts, with commendations given to icons from the worlds of film and television, theater, popular music, classical music and opera, and dance<\/p>\n
Traditionally, the Kennedy Center Honors have focused on lifetime achievements \u2013 an exception was made in 2018 when the award went to the creators of the Broadway show \u201cHamilton.\u201d Also, for years it was an unspoken tradition to present four of the awards to white artists and one to a token minority \u2013 it wasn\u2019t until 2013 that the majority of honorees were nonwhites. And while the Kennedy Center Honors was initially designed to celebrate American talent, over the years the prize has gone to British and Japanese artists.<\/p>\n
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There is one big catch to getting the award \u2013 you have to be present at the ceremony in Washington, which is telecast on CBS. The ceremony is usually preceded by a function at the White House, but that was disrupted during the Trump years when neither the president nor the honorees were eager to be in each other\u2019s company.<\/p>\n
Not being able to be present has disqualified several highly deserving individuals from being honored, most notably Doris Day who declined the prize by claiming she preferred not to fly from Los Angeles to Washington. Katharine Hepburn initially rejected making an appearance, but changed her mind for the 1990 event.<\/p>\n
But despite these considerable caveats, there has still been an extraordinary number of film giants whose career achievements have been overlooked by the Kennedy Center Honors since the first award gala in 1978. For your consideration, here are 10 cinema legends that should have been feted by the Kennedy Center Honors but were, for whatever reason, ignored.<\/p>\n
John Cassavetes (1929 \u2013 1989). <\/strong>One of the most influential figures in independent filmmaking, Cassavetes wrote and directed seminal works including \u201cShadows\u201d (1960), \u201cFaces\u201d (1968), \u201cA Woman Under the Influence\u201d (1974) and \u201cGloria\u201d (1980). He was also a memorable on-camera presence in diverse works including \u201cThe Dirty Dozen\u201d (1967), \u201cRosemary\u2019s Baby\u201d (1968) and his production \u201cHusbands\u201d (1970). How the Kennedy Center forgot to honor him is a mystery. Jackie Gleason (1916-1987).<\/strong> Between “The Honeymooners” on television and diverse film roles including his Oscar-nominated “The Hustler” (1961) and the “Smokey and the Bandit” franchise, one would assume The Great One’s C.V. would have qualified him for award consideration.<\/p>\n Eartha Kitt (1927 \u2013 2008).<\/strong> The sultry singer-actress invigorated Broadway, Hollywood and the cabaret stages of the world and also redefined the notion of the performing artist as a political activist. At the very least, the Kennedy Center Honors would have been a long-overdue apology from Washington from the treatment she received courtesy of the Johnson White House and Hoover FBI.<\/p>\n Jerry Lewis (1926 \u2013 2017).<\/strong> Okay, can the obvious jokes that he\u2019s more deserving of the L\u00e9gion d’honneur \u2013 Lewis\u2019s output on both sides of the camera, coupled with decades of humanitarian work for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, should have made him a shoo-in for this tribute.<\/p>\n Dean Martin (1917 \u2013 1995).<\/strong> Also absent from the Kennedy Center Honors roll call is Lewis\u2019 one-time partner. Oddly, Martin\u2019s fellow Rat Packers Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. were feted, but Martin\u2019s success in films, television, recordings and concerts was not considered worthy.<\/p>\n Mickey Rooney (1920 \u2013 2014).<\/strong> With more than 300 films spanning cinema history from the silent movies to the digital age, Rooney\u2019s omission is utterly mystifying. Melvin Van Peebles (1932 \u2013 ). <\/strong>Actor, writer, filmmaker, composer and visual artist, Van Peebles redefined African American cinema with his 1971 masterwork \u201cSweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.\u201d Even if his diverse career was limited to that one film, that alone would warrant his award.<\/p>\n Orson Welles (1915 \u2013 1985).<\/strong> Yes, even Welles was snubbed by the Kennedy Center Honors. And you can\u2019t blame that on the Hearst newspapers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Saturday, June 5, the 43rd Kennedy Center Honors will be held in Washington, D.C. This annual event follows a tradition of honoring five individuals or entities within the performing arts, with commendations given to icons from the worlds of film and television, theater, popular music, classical music and opera, and dance Traditionally, the Kennedy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":35328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1369],"tags":[2107,270,1725,522,1236,2419,2746,2748,2747,1477,870],"class_list":["post-35327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-list-junkies","category-retro-cinema","tag-barbara-stanwyck","tag-dean-martin","tag-eartha-kitt","tag-jackie-gleason","tag-jerry-lewis","tag-john-cassavetes","tag-kennedy-center-honors","tag-melvin-van-peebles","tag-mickey-rooney","tag-orson-welles","tag-roger-corman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35327"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35330,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35327\/revisions\/35330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRoger Corman (1926 \u2013 ).<\/strong> Among the most influential filmmakers, Corman generated a canon of memorable productions, gave big breaks to diverse talents including Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Nicholson and expanded moviegoing experiences through his New World Pictures distribution company. None of this is worthy of the Kennedy Center Honors?<\/p>\n
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\nBarbara Stanwyck (1907 \u2013 1990).<\/strong> If real life imitated a Barbara Stanwyck movie, the chieftains who decide which star gets the Kennedy Center Honors would be on the receiving end of Stanwyck\u2019s wrath. As with Rooney, the omission is astonishing.<\/p>\n