Kennedy Honors: Oprah But No Carol
Last month, the Oscars named its honorary recipients and, once again, there was no Doris Day. Today, the Kennedy Center announced its honorees and, once again, no Carol Channing (or Doris Day). Jerry Herman, the author of Miss Channing’s biggest hit, “Hello, Dolly!”, was named, however. Publicly, I’m sure Carol is thrilled about this. Privately, I can just imagine her fuming: “That little sissy Jerry gets the big prize but poor little me, who sold his piece of goods on Broadway and on tour for decades — which helped him buy his fancy house in L.A. — gets absolutely nothing. Sheesh!” The other Kennedy honorees are Oprah Winfrey, Merle Haggard, Paul McCartney, and Bill T. Jones. I have to question giving Oprah an award that normally honors writers and performers. Oprah has certainly brought many books and movies and TV shows to the public’s attention, but she’s not much of an artist herself. But she’s a good pal of the President’s, so what are you going to do? And don’t get me started at all the performing artists who’ve been brilliant for decades (Meryl Streep, for starters) and who are older than Oprah but who haven’t been selected.
Carol should certainly be honored for not only her more than sixty year career but for the fact that she has worked tirelessly on behalf of others. In 2007 and 2008 I brought her to NH to help raise money for AIDS and she was amazing in her compassionate caring and non-stop effort to help clients and to change false perceptions about the disease. As she nears 90, she continues to be a dynamo as she and her husband work at both keeping the Arts as part of a complete education and doing benefits to help others. Likewise, Doris Day had an amazing career as a singer, dancer and actress in drama, musicals and comedies, later shifting gears to work on behalf of our “four leggers”. After Katrina she chartered a plane to fly homeless pets to California to be cared for. The Kennedy Center has missed a golden opportunity to acknowledge two amazing individuals who have spent their lives both entertaining millions and devoting time, energy and heartfelt concern to making this world a better place.