HBO/Colleen Hayes(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Calling her a “comedy icon,” the Kennedy Center just announced that Seinfeld, New Adventures of Old Christine and Veep Emmy winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus will be honored with this year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
The star-studded event will be held on October 21 in Washington, D.C. and recorded for broadcast on a later date.
Days before announcing last fall that she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer, Louis-Dreyfus broke the record for the most Emmys won by a single performer, with 11 — and six consecutively for Veep. She’s also won a Golden Globe award, a Peabody Award, nine Screen Actors Guild awards and other honors.
Veep Emmy-winner Tony Hale told ABC Radio this week that Dreyfus is getting “stronger and stronger” following cancer treatment, and that their show, which suspended production while its star recovers, would get rolling again at the end of the summer.
Louis-Dreyfus is the 20th recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Richard Pryor was the first and David Letterman the most recent. Louis-Dreyfus is also the sixth woman to receive the prize, following Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, Tina Fey, Ellen DeGeneres and Carol Burnett. 2009 winner Bill Cosby had his prize revoked this year after he was convicted of aggravated indecent assault.
Copyright © 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.