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Women

Ellen DeGeneres Named Mark Twain Prize for American Humor Recipient

Ellen DeGeneres has been named this year’s recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, making her the fourth woman to receive the honor since the award was launched in 1998. DeGeneres joins three other women who’ve been honored with the prize beginning with Whoopi Goldberg in 2001, Lily Tomlin in 2003 and Tina Fey in 2010.

Tracy E. Gilchrist

Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP, Executive Producer of Entertainment for the Advocate Channel. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.

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Tracy E. Gilchrist

TracyEGilchrist

May 15 2012 2:43 PM EST

November 08 2024 7:55 AM EST

Ellen DeGeneres has been named this year’s recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, making her the fourth woman to receive the honor since the award was launched in 1998.

Upon hearing the news that she would be honored DeGeneres proved worthy of it with a hilariously dry comment. “It’s such an honor to receive the Mark Twain Prize,” DeGeneres said according to the Washington Post. “To get the same award that has been given to people like Bill Cosby, Tina Fey and Will Ferrell it really makes me wonder . . . why didn’t I get this sooner?”

Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein said that DeGeneres was chosen because her “special brand of humor has allowed us to find hilarity in the mundane and has kept us laughing for years.”

DeGeneres joins three other women who’ve been honored with the prize beginning with Whoopi Goldberg in 2001, Lily Tomlin in 2003 and Tina Fey in 2010.

“Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby and Ellen carried on that tradition of Twain’s observational humor,” said Cappy McGarr, an executive producer of the Mark Twain Prize for Humor event. McGarr added, “And Ellen is not just a comedian, she is a miracle worker. She got the president to dance, she got the First Lady to do push-ups and she got Tom Delay to laugh. She has such great charm.”