(© Joseph Marzullo/WENN)
The recipients of the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors have been announced. The awards will be bestowed on Tony Award-winning writer and director Mel Brooks, Oscar-winning actor Robert DeNiro, pianist and composer Dave Brubeck; opera singer Grace Bumbry; and singer and songwriter Bruce Springsteen.
The honorees will be saluted on December 6 in a star-studded celebration on the Kennedy Center Opera House stage, which will be produced by George Stevens Jr. The event will be recorded for broadcast as a two-hour special on CBS on Wednesday, December 29 at 9 pm.
Brooks’ stage version of The Producers won 12 Tony Awards. Brooks’ other Broadway credits include Young Frankenstein as well as books for the musicals All American, which starred Ray Bolger, and Shinbone Alley, which starred Eartha Kitt. In addition to the film versions of The Producers and Young Frankenstein, his many films include Blazing Saddles, Spaceballs and High Anxiety.
De Niro made his Broadway debut in 1986 in Reinadlo Povod’s Cuba and His Teddy Bear. He has won two Academy Awards for his work in The Godfather, Part 2 and Raging Bull.
For further information, visit www.kennedy-center.org.
