Recipients of Kennedy Center Honors

Updated September 9, 2022 | Infoplease Staff

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., created its Honors awards in 1978 to recognize the lifetime achievements of selected American performing artists.

1978

Marian Anderson, Fred Astaire, Richard Rodgers, Arthur Rubinstein, George Balanchine

1979

Ella Fitzgerald, Henry Fonda, Martha Graham, Tennessee Williams, Aaron Copland

1980

James Cagney, Leonard Bernstein, Agnes de Mille, Lynn Fontanne, Leontyne Price

1981

Count Basie, Cary Grant, Helen Hayes, Jerome Robbins, Rudolf Serkin

1982

George Abbott, Lillian Gish, Benny Goodman, Gene Kelly, Eugene Ormandy

1983

Katherine Dunham, Elia Kazan, James Stewart, Virgil Thomson, Frank Sinatra

1984

Lena Horne, Danny Kaye, Gian Carlo Menotti, Arthur Miller, Isaac Stern

1985

Merce Cunningham, Irene Dunne, Bob Hope, Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, Beverly Sills

1986

Lucille Ball, Ray Charles, Yehudi Menuhin, Antony Tudor, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy

1987

Perry Como, Bette Davis, Sammy Davis, Jr., Nathan Milstein, Alwin Nikolais

1988

Alvin Ailey, George Burns, Myrna Loy, Alexander Schneider, Roger L. Stevens

1989

Harry Belafonte, Claudette Colbert, Alexandra Danilova, Mary Martin, William Schuman

1990

Dizzy Gillespie, Katharine Hepburn, Risë Stevens, Jule Styne, Billy Wilder

1991

Roy Acuff, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the brothers Fayard and Harold Nicholas, Gregory Peck, Robert Shaw

1992

Lionel Hampton, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Ginger Rogers, Mstislav Rostropovich, Paul Taylor

1993

Johnny Carson, Arthur Mitchell, Georg Solti, Stephen Sondheim, Marion Williams

1994

Kirk Douglas, Aretha Franklin, Morton Gould, Harold Prince, Pete Seeger

1995

Jacques d'Amboise, Marilyn Horne, B. B. King, Sidney Poitier, Neil Simon

1996

Edward Albee, Benny Carter, Johnny Cash, Jack Lemmon, Maria Tallchief

1997

Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, Charlton Heston, Jessye Norman, Edward Villella

1998

Bill Cosby, John Kander and Fred Ebb, Willie Nelson, André Previn, Shirley Temple Black

1999

Victor Borge, Sean Connery, Judith Jamison, Jason Robards, Stevie Wonder

2000

Mikhail Baryshnikov, Plácido Domingo, Angela Lansbury, Chuck Berry, Clint Eastwood

2001

Julie Andrews, Van Cliburn, Quincy Jones, Jack Nicholson, Luciano Pavarotti

2002

James Earl Jones, James Levine, Chita Rivera, Paul Simon, Elizabeth Taylor

2003

James Brown, Carol Burnett, Loretta Lynn, Mike Nichols, Itzhak Perlman

2004

Warren Beatty, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Elton John, Joan Sutherland, John Williams

2005

Tony Bennett, Suzanne Farrell, Julie Harris, Robert Redford, Tina Turner

2006

Zubin Mehta, Dolly Parton, William “Smokey” Robinson, Steven Spielberg, Andrew Lloyd Webber

2007

Steve Martin, Diana Ross, Leon Fleisher, Martin Scorsese, Brian Wilson

2008

Morgan Freeman, George Jones, Barbra Streisand, Twyla Tharp, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey