SHOWBIZ TIME MAGAZINE P. 63     Cover of the Magazine    Table of Contents      Highlights

AWARDS

RECIPIENTS OF THE UNITED STATES LIVING LEGEND AWARD

CATEGORY: MUSIC, ENTERTAINMENT, SHOWBIZ, PERFORMING ARTS

Tony Bennett (b. Aug. 3, 1926)

Tony Bennett has won ten Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and “Album of the Year” for 1995’s MTV Unplugged special. He showed vocal talent as a child as a singing waiter. He later perfected his skills singing with military bands while in the U.S. Army. After he was discharged, he made an appearance on “The Arthur Godfrey Talent Show,” and his star steadily rose. By 1964, he had 24 top-40 hits to his credit. His signature tune “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” is a classic pop recording and set the standard for romantic ballads. Date Awarded: April 2000

Harry Belafonte (b. March 1, 1927)

The acknowledged “King of Calypso,” Harry Belafonte is one of the most successful African-American pop stars in history. His talent and masterful assimilation of folk, jazz and world beat rhythms allowed him to achieve a level of mainstream prominence and crossover popularity virtually unparalleled in the days before the advent of the civil rights movement–a cultural uprising which he helped spearhead. Date Awarded: April 2000

Dave Brubeck (b. Dec. 6, 1920)

Jazz legend Dave Brubeck is equally distinguished as composer and pianist. Studies at the College of the Pacific and Mills College led to the founding of the experimental Jazz Workshop Ensemble, which recorded in 1949 as the Dave Brubeck Octet. Later, Brubeck achieved an overwhelming popular success as the Dave Brubeck Quartet. The Quartet's experimentation with time signatures unusual to jazz produced works like “Blue Rondo a la Turk” and “Take Five,” introducing millions of enthusiastic young listeners to unexplored regions of jazz. As composer, Brubeck has written and recorded several large-scale works including two ballets, a musical, an oratorio, four cantatas, a mass, works for jazz combo and orchestra, and many solo piano pieces. In the last 20 years, he has organized several new quartets and continued to appear at the Newport, Monterey, Concord and Kool Jazz Festivals. Brubeck performed at the White House in 1964 and 1981 and at the 1988 Moscow summit honoring the Gorbachevs. He is the recipient of four honorary degrees, the BMI Jazz Pioneer Award and the 1988 American Eagle Award presented by the National Music Council. Date Awarded: October 2003.

 

Carol Burnett (b. April 26, 1933)

Carol Burnett started her career in off-Broadway theater and first achieved national attention with a novelty tune titled “I Made a Fool Of Myself Over John Foster Dulles.” She then made her way to television via appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” She won the hearts of TV viewers playing the nervous klutz in dozens of hilarious skits in “The Garry Moore Show,” and she was an instant hit. In 1967, The Carol Burnett Show debuted, running for a span of 11 successful years. In the 1970s, Burnett began a second career as a film actress. Date Awarded: April 2000.

 Benny Carter (Aug. 8, 1907-July 12, 2003)

For over six decades, Benny Carter has occupied a unique place in American music. As a soloist, along with Johnny Hodges, Carter was the model for swing era alto saxophonists. He is nearly unique in his ability to double on trumpet, which he plays in an equally distinctive style. Carter is an accomplished clarinetist and has recorded proficiently on piano and trombone. As a composer, he helped chart the course of big band jazz, and his compositions, such as “When Lights Are Low” and “Blues in My Heart,” have become jazz standards. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Johnny Cash (Feb. 26, 1932-Sept.12, 2003)

Johnny Cash is an emeritus member of both the Country Music and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and winner of the 1991 Grammy Legend Award, with more than 150 charted hits to his credit. “Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Walk the Line” and other hits established Cash as a major player on both the pop and country scenes. By the mid-60's, with a continuing stream of top-sellers, he was one of the most popular artists in the country. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and in 1993 contributed a vocal performance to U2's Zooropa album. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Ray Charles (Sept. 23, 1930- June.10, 2004)

Blinded since age 7 from glaucoma, Ray Charles studied composition and began playing piano and saxophone while attending the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind. After leaving the school, he played in a variety of bands in Florida and then headed for the West Coast, where he led a jazz blues trio. He landed at Atlantic Records in 1952, where he honed his style and recorded many chart toppers. Comfortable in such disparate styles as jazz, R&B and country, Ray earned 12 Grammys throughout his career. In 1986, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 1995 received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Rhythm & Blues Foundation’s annual Pioneer Awards. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Bill Cosby (b. July 12, 1937)

Bill Cosby is one of the nation’s highly successful comedians, much of whose humor is based on personal experiences. His sitcom series, “The Cosby Show,” was one of the first to feature a well-to-do African American family. Cosby is an active supporter of civil rights causes, and political, educational and social organizations and institutions. Date Awarded: April 2000.

 

 

Merce Cunningham (b. April 16, 1919)

A principal dancer with the seminal Martha Graham Dance Company, Merce Cunningham has had a long and distinguished career. Often hailed as a “giant of modern dance,” throughout his career Cunningham has pursued his interest in creating abstract dances that accent movement itself. In 1953, he founded the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for which he has created more than 150 works. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Ahmet Ertegun (b. July 31, 1923)

Ahmet Ertegun cofounded Atlantic Records 48 years ago, a company whose musical releases have had a profound effect on the course of modern music. A principal founder and current chairman of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, he was himself inducted into The Hall of Fame for his influence on the history of contemporary music. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Suzanne Farrell (b. Aug. 16, 1945)

Suzanne Farrell began her career with the New York City Ballet in 1961, advancing to soloist in 1963 and to principal dancer from 1965-1969. After an absence of several years, Farrell rejoined New York City Ballet in 1975 and was a principal dancer until her retirement in 1989. An elegant and graceful performer, she is associated with much of the repertoire of the New York City Ballet, especially the works of the late choreographer, George Balanchine, who created many of his dances for her. Since her retirement, Farrell has produced Balanchine ballets for the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad and has been a member of the faculty of the School of American Ballet in New York. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Mickey Hart (b. Sept. 11, 1943)

For nearly three decades, Mickey Hart was percussionist with the Grateful Dead. He is also a social activist concerned with the problems of the aging, the relationship between rhythm and healing, ecology and the environment, and most recently the plight of deteriorating and at-risk ethnographic field recordings. He created the Endangered Music Project to issue, in easily available CD form, field recordings of world music from the Archive of Folk Culture, and is currently on the Board of Trustees of the American Folklife Center. Author of two books on the history of drumming, Hart won a Grammy in 1991, in the world music category, for his album “Planet Drum.” Date Awarded: April 2000.

Al Hirschfeld (June 21, 1903 - Jan. 20, 2003)

Al Hirschfeld is America’s foremost performing arts caricaturist and illustrator. His brilliant career has spanned eight decades and his drawings have set the standard for the genre. His renderings document with wit and style the development of Broadway and Hollywood and the achievements of countless 20th-century American popular entertainers. Date Awarded: April 2000.

 Odetta Holmes (b. Dec. 31, 1930)

A dynamic force in the American folk music scene for decades, Odetta Holmes began performing at the Turnabout Theater in Hollywood as a teenager. She made her first professional appearance as a folk singer at San Francisco's “Hungry I” in 1950. She has released numerous recordings, appeared in concert around the world, in films and on television with Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, Dick Cavett, Della Reese, Mike Douglas, Joey Bishop and David Frost. She participated in the Civil Rights march in Selma and in the 1963 and 1983 Washington marches. Her spirited performances have inspired artists such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin and Joan Armatrading. She is the recipient of an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., and the Duke Ellington Fellowship Award from Yale University. She has served as Artist-in-residence at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. Date Awarded: November 2003.

 

 

Bob Hope (May 29, 1903 - July 27, 2003)

Bob Hope has been declared “a part of American folklore” by a United States Senate resolution. In almost every country of the world, people know him as the performer with the rapid?fire comedy technique, flawless sense of timing and impeccable delivery. His motion pictures exceed 50 and his radio and television shows are literally countless. His career spanned more than seven decades in show business, beginning with vaudeville through Broadway and the “Ziegfeld Follies” and finally the fabulous “Road” pictures with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. Among his innumerable awards are five special Oscars for humanitarian work. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Quincy Jones (b. March 14, 1933)

As a child, Quincy Jones studied the trumpet and began playing and arranging music professionally as a teenager when he formed a band with singer and pianist Ray Charles. At the age of 16, Jones attended the Berklee College of Music on a scholarship. He later became vice president of Mercury Records, one of the first black Americans to hold a senior executive position at an American record company. As an arranger and producer, Jones has worked with hundreds of popular performers and has composed the music for more than 30 motion pictures. He founded his own record company, Qwest Records. He produced the motion picture “The Color Purple,” directed by Steven Spielberg. He began publishing the rap magazine Vibe and a year later formed Qwest Broadcasting, a minority-owned broadcast company. Jones has won Emmy and Academy Awards for his musical scoring. Date Awarded: April 2000.

B. B. King (b. Sept. 16, 1925)

Hailed as the reigning king of the blues, the legendary B. B. King is the single most important electric guitarist of the last half-century. The seeds of his talent can be traced to his birth in the blues-rich Mississippi Delta, where gospel and country blended with the blues to create a unique and affecting sound. King has scored more than 74 entries on Billboard’s R&B charts and achieved mainstream success with his 1970 smash hit “The Thrill is Gone.” Date Awarded: September 2005.

Annie Leibovitz (b. Oct. 2, 1949)

Annie Leibovitz is known principally for her innovative work in advertising, fashion and celebrity portraiture. Her works are internationally known, having appeared in numerous magazines and museums throughout the world. She has won several notable awards, including a Grammy, ASMP Photographer of the Year and the Clio Award for advertising. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Alan Lomax (Jan. 31, 1915 - July 19, 2002)

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, working with the Library of Congress, the Lomaxes (father John and other members of the family) collected thousands of folksongs and spoken word performances throughout the United States (and particularly in the South) before gramophone, radio and television supplanted the inclinations of ordinary folks to make their own entertainment. With his father, Alan Lomax helped to build the national folk archive at the Library of Congress, where he was assistant in charge. In 1986, he received the National Medal of the Arts from President Reagan. Date Awarded: April 2000.

 

 

Yo-Yo Ma (b. Oct. 7, 1955)

A world-renowned cellist, Yo-Yo Ma began studying the cello with his father at age four. As a performer, he maintains a balance between his engagements as a soloist with orchestras throughout the world and his recital and chamber music. One of his personal goals is to demonstrate how music is a means of communication in both Western and non-Western cultures. To that end, he has immersed himself in music as diverse as native Chinese music and the music of the Kalahari bush people in Africa. In 1997, he received a Grammy Award as Artist of the Year. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Rita Moreno (b. Dec. 11, 1931)

Rita Moreno began her career as a dancer, coming to Broadway at age 13 and then on to Hollywood at the age of 14. Her work on the stage and screen won her an Oscar in 1962 for Best Supporting Actress in “West Side Story,” the only Hispanic actress to win an Academy Award. She has also been awarded two Grammys and a Tony. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Gordon Parks (Nov. 30, 1912 - Mar. 7, 2006)

Gordon Parks is accomplished in many fields, among them photography, film, music and poetry. He was the first photographer to receive a fellowship from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation. Through the course of his career, Parks worked with the Farm Services Administration (FSA) and Vogue and Life magazines. In 2002, at the age of 90, he received the Jackie Robinson Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Dolly Parton (b. Jan. 19, 1946)

Dolly Parton began appearing on Knoxville TV at age 12, and at 13 she was already recording on a small label and appearing at the Grand Ole Opry. After graduating from high school, she moved to Nashville to launch her career as a country singer. Parton's singing caught the attention of Porter Wagoner, who hired her to appear on his program, “The Porter Wagoner Show.” By the time her hit “Joshua” reached number one in 1970, her fame had overshadowed Porter's, and she struck out on her own. Parton gained immense popularity as a singer/songwriter and has won numerous Country Music Association Awards and five Grammys. She is also an established actress, having starred in such well-known movies as “9 to 5” and “Steel Magnolias.” Parton is the head of Dolly Parton Enterprises, a $100 million media empire, and in 1986 she founded Dollywood, a theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., celebrating her Smokey Mountain upbringing. Date Awarded: April 2004.

Itzhak Perlman (b. Aug. 31, 1945)

Itzhak Perlman was a child prodigy. He came to New York at the age of 13 and studied violin with the influential American teacher Ivan Galamian. Renowned for his brilliant technique and musicianship, his mentor, Isaac Stern, has called his talent “utterly limitless.” Perlman tours and records extensively. Crippled by polio at the age of 4, he is a strong proponent of equal rights for the disabled. Date Awarded: April 2000.

 

 

 

Leontyne Price (b. Feb. 10, 1927)

A soprano, Leontyne Price has sung at the Metropolitan Opera since 1961 and is known for the range and power of her voice in titles roles of operas such as Verdi’s “Aida,” Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” and Ravel’s “Carmen.” Date Awarded: April 2000.

Tito Puente (April 20, 1923 - May 31, 2000)

As one of the world’s leading Latin jazz musicians, Tito Puente worked continuously since 1937 and recorded more than 100 albums. He began his career as a drummer in Noro Morales’ orchestra and played briefly with Machito’s Afro-Cubans before he was drafted into the U.S. Navy. He played in a band led by the famed swing bandleader, Charlie Barnet. After his discharge, on the G.I. Bill, he studied at the Julliard School of Music while working with a variety of Latin bands in New York. In the early 1980s, he moved into more traditional Latin jazz, earning a Grammy award for “Tito Puente and His Latin Ensemble on Broadway.” Date Awarded: April 2000.

Fred Rogers (March 20, 1928 - Feb. 27, 2003)

Fred Rogers created a 15minute children’s series called “Mister Rogers” for the CBC in Toronto. In 1966 he developed a new half hour format of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” for the Eastern Educational Network and then in 1968 for national distribution through the Public Broadcasting Service. In addition to two George Foster Peabody Awards and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Emmys and the TV Critics Association, Rogers has received virtually every major award in television and dozens of others from special interest groups in education, communications and early childhood. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Martin Scorsese (b. Nov. 17, 1942)

Martin Scorsese achieved fame and universal recognition in the 1970s with his filmmaking techniques that incorporated unusual camera and editing techniques, and his subject matter, which examined gangster life, religion, popular music and anti-heroes. His first acknowledged masterpiece was the 1973 drama “Mean Streets.” He went on to film the acclaimed “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and “Taxi Driver” in 1974. In April 1979, after years of preparation, he began work on “Raging Bull,” a film based on the autobiography of boxer Jake LaMotta. Filmed in black and white, the feature was his most ambitious work to date and is widely regarded as the greatest movie of the 1980s. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Pete Seeger (b. May 3, 1919)

For nearly six decades, Pete Seeger has sung the old songs, written new songs and urged and invited audiences to use their own voices. In 1938, as a young man starting out, he served as assistant to Alan Lomax at the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. In the late 1940s, he helped to found both a magazine, Sing Out! and a popular vocal group, The Weavers, which was highly influential in the folksong revival. He also sponsored the Clearwater, a nineteenth century Hudson River sloop that makes frequent stops on the river to educate people about its ecology. Date Awarded: April 2000.

 

 

 

Gunther Schuller (b. Nov. 22, 1925)

Pulitzer Prize winner Gunther Schuller has performed and recording with such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and John Lewis, as well as enjoyed a distinguished teaching career. His positions have included professor of composition at the School of Music at Yale, president of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and artistic director of the Tanglewood Berkshire Music Center and The Festival at Sandpoint (Idaho). Of his more than 160 original compositions, he’s been commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Minneapolis Symphony, National Symphony and the New York Philharmonic. Among his other awards are the Gold Medal for Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the BMI Lifetime Achievement Award, a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award, the William Schuman Award and ten honorary degrees. Date Awarded: Dec. 16, 2005.

Bobby Short (Sept. 15, 1924 - March 21, 2005)

With his mother’s permission, Bobby Short left home at 11 to perform in Chicago and has been performing ever since. Since 1968 Short has been the pianist at the Café Carlyle, appearing eight months a year. He performs the standards by Cole Porter, the Gershwins and Rodgers and Hart and brings back memories of a golden age of popular music. His unique delivery was heavily influenced by the great cabaret stylist, Mabel Mercer, and Ivie Anderson, who sang with Duke Ellington. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Stephen Sondheim (b. March 22, 1930)

Stephen Sondheim stands among Broadway show composers and lyricists as the greatest of his generation. Mentored by the late lyricist Oscar Hammerstein after befriending Hammerstein’s son in school, Sondheim got his first big break when he was hired to do the lyrics for Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story.” “West Side Story” became one of the most memorable shows of all time. Sondheim scored his first success as composer and lyricist with “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and had a hit again with the groundbreaking “Company,” which dealt with contemporary life and mores and did much to revolutionize the Broadway musical. Other successes have followed most notably, “Follies,” “A Little Night Music,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Sunday in the Park with George,” “Into the Woods” and “Assassins.” Date Awarded: April 2000.

Steven Spielberg (b. Dec. 18, 1946)

A lifelong cinema buff, Steven Spielberg began directing his first short movies while still a child. He studied film at California State University and won notice for his 1969 short feature “Amblin.” He graduated to big-budget blockbusters with the release of “Star Wars,” which he co-created with George Lucas. His 1977 “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” was another huge success, employing state-of-the-art special effects. In the 1980s, he released “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and several successful sequels. In the 1990s, he released the global blockbuster “Jurassic Park.” That same year he released “Schindler’s List,” a docudrama set in the Holocaust. He received seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for this film. Date Awarded: April 2000.

 

 

Ralph Stanley (b. Feb. 25, 1927)

Ralph Stanley is the elder statesman of bluegrass music since the death of Bill Monroe in 1996. Along with his late brother, Carter, and his band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, Stanley represents the history of bluegrass music, both in his own experimentation and in remaining true to the roots of this traditional musical style. He performed with his brother on local radio in 1946, when they were teenagers, and later for Bristol, Tenn.’s WCYB, the “five state station.” On the road with his banjo for more than half a century, Stanley has recorded more than 150 albums, received numerous awards and been the subject of a comprehensive study. In 1984, he received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Isaac Stern (July 21, 1920 - Sept. 22, 2001)

Born in Russia in 1920, Isaac Stern came to America at the age of 10 months. He began playing the violin at 8 and made his recital debut at 13. In 1936, at 16, he performed with the San Francisco Symphony in a nationally broadcast concert of the Brahms Violin Concerto. During his career of more than 50 years, he has appeared on stages the world over, supported and nurtured the development of young musicians through his presidency of Carnegie Hall and devoted himself to the advancement and recognition of the arts nationally and internationally. He is one of the most recorded musicians of our time. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Barbara Streisand (b. April 24, 1942)

Barbara Streisand once termed herself as “the actress who sings.” In 1962, she signed a contract with Columbia Records and her debut album rose to the top of the charts. She moved onto Broadway to play Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl” for which she was awarded a Tony. She starred in the movie version and won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. She went on to star in many other successful films and then turned her attention to directing and producing. She is perhaps the only artist to earn Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, Cable Ace and Peabody Awards recognizing her many talents and body of works. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Gwen Verdon (Jan. 13, 1925 - Oct. 18, 2000)

Gwen Verdon began her career as a dancer and continued to play roles throughout her career that employed her extraordinary dancing talents. She starred in such hit shows as “Can-Can,” “Redhead” and “Damn Yankees,” and on film in the “Cotton Club” and “Cocoon.” Since retiring from dancing, Verdon has appeared in numerous television series and has worked as a consultant for revivals of several Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon shows. Date Awarded: April 2000.

Lew Wasserman (March 15, 1913-June 3, 2002)

Lew Wasserman, the former owner of MCA, was a long time studio chief. In a career that spanned six decades, as president and then chairman of MCA, he directed the vast media and communications empire that encompassed Universal Pictures, MCA records, Universal studios and the famed studio tour. He had enormous influence as head of the studio, expanded its interests and changed the way movies are made. In 1973, Wasserman received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Date Awarded: April 2000.