Dolly Parton Information

About Dolly in particular, he said her "creativity and spirit make her country music's best international ambassador." The actual awards will be presented to the honorees in a private state dinner Dec. 2 hosted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush will receive them on Dec. 3 at The White House, followed by a gala ceremony and concert at the Kennedy Center's Opera House, which will be videotaped for broadcast later in the month on CBS (the exact air date has yet to be announced). Recipients are selected each year by the Board of Trustees of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts based on nominations from the Center's national artists committee, past honorees and individual leaders in the arts. The final honorees are chosen for recognition "for their lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts in dance, music, theater, opera, motion pictures and television. The primary criterion in the selection process is excellence. Last year's honorees were Tony Bennett, Suzanne Farrell, Julie Harris, Robert Redford and Tina Turner. Other previous recipients over the awards' 29-year history include luminaries such as Tennessee Williams, Cary Grant, Bob Hope, Ray Charles, Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, Johnny Carson, B.B. King, Bob Dylan, Bill Cosby, Elizabeth Taylor, Carol Burnett and Elton John. Read more from Playbill (which appears to have broken the story at least an hour before anyone else had it) here, The Tennesseanhere, the Associated Press (via MSNBC) here and Dolly's official Kennedy Center bio here. Not all coverage was accurate, though. The story in The Washington Post claimed she had made a total of 15 films and received a total 20 gold albums, apparently due to the reporter's misreading of her Kennedy Center bio, which noted she had made "more than 15" films and received "more than 20" gold and platinum record awards -- including her cameos, she's appeared in 17 feature and made-for-television movies, and she has earned a total of 26 U.S. gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards. E! Online said here that she had released "nearly 60 albums" -- which is only her total if all of her concert LPs, official best of/greatest hits collections and movie soundtracks are removed from the total -- and that she has received five Grammy Awards, when in actuality she's been honored with seven credited Grammys (the Kennedy Center bio doesn't total them up but only mentions her five solo awards, leaving out her two collaborative awards with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris -- there's also an eighth one, but it was for a "various artist" project, and under Grammy rules those awards are credited only to the album's producer instead of the individual artists, so it can't be counted toward her total).