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  • George Clooney, Gladys Knight among Kennedy Center honorees

    George Clooney, Gladys Knight among Kennedy Center honorees

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    WASHINGTON — Performers such as Gladys Knight or the Irish band U2 usually would be headlining a concert for thousands but at Sunday’s Kennedy Center Honors the tables will be turned as they and other artists will be the ones feted for their lifetime of artistic contributions.

    Actor, director, producer and human rights activist George Clooney, groundbreaking composer and conductor Tania León, and contemporary Christian singer Amy Grant will join Knight, and the entire crew of U2 in being honored by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

    The organization honors a select group of people every year for their artistic influences on American culture. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their respective spouses are slated to attend.

    The 61-year-old Clooney — the actor among this year’s musically leaning group of honorees — has television credits going back into the late 1970s but became a household name with the role of Doug Ross in the television show ER.

    From there he starred in movies such as “Batman & Robin,” “Three Kings,” “Ocean’s Eleven” (and Twelve and Thirteen), and his most recent movie “Ticket to Paradise.” He also has extensive directing and producing credits including “Good Night, and Good Luck.” He and his wife, humanitarian rights lawyer Amal Clooney, created the Clooney Foundation for Justice, and he’s produced telethons to raise money for various causes.

    “To be mentioned in the same breath with the rest of these incredible artists is an honor. This is a genuinely exciting surprise for the whole Clooney family,” said Clooney in a statement on the Center’s website.

    Knight, 78, said in a statement that she was “humbled beyond words” at receiving the Kennedy honor. The Georgia-born Knight began singing gospel music at the age of 4 and went on to a career that has spanned decades.

    Knight and family members started a band that would later be known as “Gladys Knight & The Pips” and produced their first album in 1960 when Knight was just 16. Since then she’s recorded dozens of albums with such classic hits as “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “Midnight Train to Georgia.” Along the way she’s acted in television shows and movies. When Knight and the band were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Mariah Carey described Knight as “… a textbook you learn from.”

    Sometimes the Kennedy Center honors not just individuals but groups; “Sesame Street” once got the nod.

    This year it’s the band U2. The group’s strong connection to America goes back decades. They performed in Washington during their first trip to America in 1980. In a statement the band — made up of Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. — said they originally came to America with big dreams “fueled in part by the commonly held belief at home that America smiles on Ireland.”

    “And it turned out to be true, yet again,” read the statement. “It has been a four-decade love affair with the country and its people, its artists, and culture.”

    U2 has sold 170 million albums and been honored with 22 Grammys. The band’s epic singles include “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” Lead singer Bono has also become known for his philanthropic work to eradicate poverty and to raise awareness about AIDS.

    Christian music performed Amy Grant said in an interview with The Associated Press that she’d never even been to the Kennedy Center Honors even though her husband, country musician Vince Gill, has performed during previous ceremonies. Grammy winner Grant is well known for crossover pop hits like “Baby, Baby,” “Every Heartbeat” and “That’s What Love is For.” She’s sold more than 30 million albums, including her 1991 record “Heart in Motion,” that introduced her to a larger pop audience.

    Composer and conductor Tania Leon said during an interview when the honorees were announced that she wasn’t expecting “anything spectacular” when the Kennedy Center initially reached out to her. After all, she’s worked with the Kennedy Center numerous times over the years going back to 1980 when she was commissioned to compose music for a play.

    But the 79-year-old Pulitzer prize winner said she was stunned to learn that this time the ceremony was going to be for her.

    Leon left Cuba as a refugee in 1967 and eventually settled in New York City. She’s a founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem and instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series.

    ——

    Follow Santana on Twitter @ruskygal.

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  • Honorary Oscar awards celebrate Fox, Weir, Warren and Palcy

    Honorary Oscar awards celebrate Fox, Weir, Warren and Palcy

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    LOS ANGELES — Four standing ovations in one night might seem a little over-the-top, even by Hollywood standards. But at the Governors Awards Saturday night, where Michael J. Fox, Euzhan Palcy, Peter Weir and Diane Warren were celebrated with honorary Oscar statuettes, each moment felt worthy.

    After several pandemic-adjusted years, the annual event to hand out honorary Oscar statuettes, put on by the Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was back in full form at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel on Saturday.

    The ballroom was teeming with stars including Tom Hanks, Viola Davis, Colin Farrell, Angela Bassett, Margot Robbie, Jennifer Lawrence, Michelle Yeoh, Robert Downey Jr., Michelle Williams, Cher, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Rooney Mara, Jessica Chastain, Damien Chazelle, Jordan Peele and Ron Howard, to name just a few.

    The Governors Awards is a celebration of the honorees and a chance for many of the filmmakers and actors hoping to win awards to mingle with potential voters before everyone takes leave for the holidays with an armful of screeners to watch and consider.

    “It’s a really special night,” Butler said. “I just had a really special moment with Robert Downey Jr.”

    This was the first Governors Awards for the “Elvis” star, who was accompanied by director Baz Luhrmann and Priscilla Presley.

    “Armageddon Time” actor Jaylin Webb, another first-timer and self-proclaimed “superhero nerd,” was excited to see several people from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”

    “It’s a little overwhelming,” Webb said.

    The room at the Governors Awards brings many unexpected star pairings, as everyone clamors to meet someone they admire. Near one table, Hanks could be seen sharing a laugh with Yeoh. In another part of the room, Chastain chatted with Billy Eichner, while Jude Law caught up with director Daniel Kwan and Ke Huy Quan posed for a photo with Elizabeth Banks and Rian Johnson.

    But the main event brought everyone to their seats: The presentation of the honorary Oscars.

    Fox, who was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his contributions to Parkinson’s disease research, was up first and received a colorful introduction from his friend Woody Harrelson.

    “He’s a genuinely great guy,” Harrelson said. “What can I say? He’s Canadian.”

    The 61-year-old “Back to the Future’ and “Family Ties” star was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1991 at age 29 and in 2000 started a foundation to fund further research into the condition. To date, the foundation has raised more than $1.5 billion.

    “My optimism is fueled by my gratitude,” Fox said.

    Fox gave a sharp, funny, thoughtful speech to accept the award. He recounted how he dropped out of high school to give acting a shot and a teacher told him, “Fox, you’re not going to be cute forever.”

    “I didn’t know how to respond and I said maybe just long enough,” Fox said.

    He has had a particularly challenging year with injuries, including a broken cheek, hand, shoulder, arm and elbow, and the loss of his mother, who died in September, all of which he spoke about in-depth in a recent People Magazine cover story. Tracy Pollan, Fox’s wife with whom he has four children, was there to support him and he called her on stage to close his speech.

    “I can’t walk and carry this thing (the Oscar) so I once again ask Tracy to carry the weight,” Fox said.

    Cher was on hand to introduce Warren, the prolific songwriter and 13-time Oscar nominee. She laughed that Warren will often call her to say she’s written her best song yet, to which Cher responds, “You always say that.”

    When Warren took the stage, she said the words she’s been waiting to say for 34 years, since she got her first Oscar nomination: “I’d like to thank the Academy.”

    “Mom, I finally found a man,” Warren said, looking at the golden statuette. “I know you wanted him to be a nice Jewish boy but it’s really hard to tell.”

    Jeff Bridges came out to celebrate Weir, the Australian filmmaker who directed him in the 1993 film “Fearless.” He said it was Robin Williams who brought them together.

    Weir, too, reflected about Williams, with whom he worked on “Dead Poets Society” and marveled about how Williams was when no one was around and inspiration would strike.

    Weir, 78, was a leading voice in the Australian New Wave movement, with pictures like “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” “The Last Wave” and “Gallipoli,” before successfully transferring to Hollywood filmmaking where he traversed genres with ease directing films like “Dead Poets Society” and “The Truman Show” to “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.” The Australian auteur received many Oscar nominations over the years, but hasn’t made a feature since “The Way Back,” from 2010.

    “I had a wonderful 20 years of making studio pictures,” Weir said. “I love craft I think that’s what it’s all about. Don’t you love something that’s well made whether it’s a chair a table or a statue?”

    Davis helped close out the night celebrating Palcy, who was first Black woman to direct a film produced by a major studio (MGM with “A Dry White Season.”)

    “I am always defending my womanhood and my blackness,” Davis said. “You said, ‘I ain’t gonna do that, I’m going to wait for the work that is worthy of my talent.’ You used it as warrior fuel.”

    Palcy also retreated from Hollywood moviemaking in the past decade, but unlike Weir, the 64-year-old Martinique native is ready to come back and make films again.

    “Black is bankable. Female is bankable,” Palcy said. “My stories are not Black, they are not white, they are universal.”

    —-

    Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr.

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  • Dolly Parton donation strategy: ‘I just give from my heart’

    Dolly Parton donation strategy: ‘I just give from my heart’

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    NEW YORK — Dolly Parton laughs at the idea that she is some sort of secret philanthropist.

    Sure, social media sleuths did piece together this week that the country superstar had been quietly paying for the band uniforms of many Tennessee high schools for years. And yes, it did take decades for her to reveal that she used the songwriting royalties she earned from Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” to purchase a strip mall in Nashville to support the surrounding Black neighborhood in her honor. Oh, and it did eventually come out that Parton had donated $1 million for research that helped create the Moderna vaccine for COVID-19.

    “I don’t do it for attention,” she told The Associated Press in an interview, shortly before she received the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy at Gotham Hall in New York City Thursday night. “But look! I’m getting a lot of attention by doing it.”

    In fact, Parton believes she gets too much attention for her philanthropic work – which ranges from promoting childhood literacy to supporting those affected by natural disasters and providing numerous college scholarships through her Dollywood Foundation.

    “I get paid more attention than maybe some others that are doing more than me,” Parton said, adding that she hopes that attention inspires more people to help others.

    In her Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy speech, Parton said she doesn’t really have a strategy for her donations.

    “I just give from my heart,” she said. “I never know what I’m going to do or why I’m gonna do it. I just see a need and if I can fill it, then I will.”

    One need Parton does focus on filling is fostering a love of reading in children. Her Imagination Library initiative sends a free book every month to children under five whose parents request them. Currently, Parton sends out about 2 million free books each month.

    “This actually started because my father could not read and write and I saw how crippling that could be,” she said. “My dad was a very smart man. And I often wondered what he could have done had he been able to read and write. So that is the inspiration.”

    That program continues to expand. And last month, the state of California partnered with Imagination Library to make the program available to the millions of children under five in the state.

    “That is a big deal,” she said. “That’s a lot of children. And we’re so honored and proud to have all the communities that make that happen because I get a lot of glory for the work a whole lot of people are doing.”

    Parton said she’ll accept that attention because it furthers the cause. “I’m proud to be the voice out there doing what I can to get more books into the hands of more children,” she said.

    Eric Isaacs, president of the Carnegie Institution for Science and a member of the medal selection committee, said Parton is a “tremendous example” of someone who understands the importance of philanthropy.

    “Everyone knows her music,” he said. “They might know Dollywood for entertainment, more broadly. But now they’re going to know her for her philanthropy, which I’m not sure they have before.”

    If Parton didn’t make philanthropy a priority in her life, it could be difficult to balance it with all her other pursuits.

    She released “Run, Rose, Run,” a best-selling novel co-written with James Patterson, in March. She filmed the holiday movie “Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas” with Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus and Jimmy Fallon for NBC. And she will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Nov. 5, alongside Eminem, Lionel Richie and Pat Benatar – an honor she initially declined, but then graciously accepted.

    “I’m ready to rock,” she said, adding that she has already written a new song, especially for that ceremony in Los Angeles.

    But Parton is also ready to expand her philanthropic work. This year, she launched the Care More initiative at her Dollywood Parks and Resorts, which gives employees a day off to volunteer at a nonprofit of their choice.

    “I think it’s important for everyone to do their share to help their fellow man,” she said. “This world is so crazy. I don’t think we even know what we’re doing to each other and to this world.”

    Parton says she hopes the day of service will let people realize that “when you help somebody, it helps them, but it can help you more.”

    “That’s what we should do as human beings,” she said. “I never quite understood why we have to let religion and politics and things like that stand in the way of just being good human beings. I think it’s important from that standpoint just to feel like you’re doing your part, doing something decent and good and right.”

    —————

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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