Kennedy Center Honorees Serenaded With Tributes
by Paul Farhi, The Washington Post
December 3, 2001
The glorious thing about the Kennedy Center Honors gala, last night and every year for the previous 23, is its loony, mishmash quality. All at once it's a fundraiser, a highbrow tribute to The Arts, a TV-special-in-the-making, a celebrity hoedown and the World's Classiest Vaudeville Show.
Where else do you get -- as one did at the Opera House last night -- U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Carol Burnett on the same bill, a duet by Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, massed choirs, ballet dancers and the song stylings of Mr. Robert Goulet? All this, plus Jeremy Irons warbling "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face." Ed Sullivan in Heaven couldn't touch this.
By turns solemn, soaring and supremely hokey, this year's program was as all over the map as the artistic gods it honored: Julie Andrews, Quincy Jones, Luciano Pavarotti, Jack Nicholson and Van Cliburn. Each of the honorees got the usual treatment -- heapings of praise from brand-name friends and admirers, a five-minute bio-film, and a series of disparate song-and-dance numbers. In the audience sat senators, Cabinet officials and Bo Derek.
Andrews wiped away tears as "The Sound Of Music" was sung by Carol Burnett, Rebecca Luker, Robert Goulet, Audra McDonald and Jeremy Irons. Also from the Andrews songbook came Kristin Chenoweth with "A Spoonful of Sugar," Audra McDonald had "I Could Have Danced All Night" and Goulet -- his pipes still golden -- did "If Ever I Would Leave You" from "Camelot." Then the gaunt and gloomy Irons appeared to sing "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face," doing an impressive Rex Harrison/Professor Higgins riff.
We understand Jeremy Irons had to appear in a borrowed tux -- his luggage never made it from Canada. P.S. He looked great in it!
Afterwards, the sight of stars like Michael Douglas, Warren Beatty, Jeremy Irons, Candice Bergen, Leontyne Price, Oprah Winfrey, Carol Burnett and Edward Albee dining on All-American fare in the formal, marble-pillared Benjamin Franklin Room was as comforting as it was unusual.
Sunday's informal brunch for the honorees at the Westin Fairfax -- hosted by George and Liz Stevens -- boasted Warren Beatty, Michael Douglas, Walter Cronkite, Carol Burnett, Candice Bergen, Cicely Tyson, Robert Goulet, Jeremy Irons, Lynn Redgrave, Dina Merrill, Sam Waterston, Nora Ephron and Michael York.