Award History
The first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor was presented to comedian Richard Pryor on October 20, 1998. The first two years of The Mark Twain Prize (Richard Pryor and Jonathan Winters) were taped and broadcast on Comedy Central. Since then, the award presentations have been taped for broadcast on PBS.
In 2007, the Mark Twain Prize celebrated its 10th anniversary and presented the prize to Billy Crystal. For the first time in 10 years, the show was held in the Opera House of The Kennedy Center on October 11, 2007 and was broadcast on November 12, 2007 on PBS. The evening's presenters included Bob Costas, Robert De Niro, Danny DeVito, Jimmy Fallon, Whoopi Goldberg, John Goodman, David Letterman, Jon Lovitz, Rob Reiner, Paul Shaffer, Martin Short, Joe Torre, Barbara Walters and Robin Williams.
It was not known at first what kind of ceremony would occur for 2008 honoree George Carlin, who died on June 22, 2008, just four days after the Kennedy Center announced he would be that year's honoree. After consulting with both Carlin's family and PBS, the ceremony took place as scheduled, with no major changes in the presentation format.
Bill Cosby was the 2009 recipient and accepted his award at the Kennedy Center on October 26, 2009. Cosby had twice refused the award because he was disappointed with the profanity used in the inaugural ceremony honoring Richard Pryor.
In 2010, 40-year-old Tina Fey became the youngest person to ever receive the award.
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