Entertainment

Kennedy Awards Announced

September 15, 1999 / 1:49 PM EDT / AP

Actors Sean Connery and Jason Robards will be saluted for lifetime achievement at this year's Kennedy Center Honors, along with singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder, dancer Judith Jamison and pianist-comedian Victor Borge.

The 22nd annual awards, announced Tuesday, will be presented Dec. 4 at a dinner at the State Department. The next day, President and Mrs. Clinton will host a White House reception for the recipients, followed by a gala performance at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, to be taped for television broadcast later in December.

Robards, 77, and Connery, 69, are being honored for their long and distinguished careers. Connery, a Scot, became famous as the first James Bond, Agent 007, in the films based on Ian Fleming's novels.

Chicago-born Robards gained prominence in plays by Eugene O'Neill. He has won two Academy Awards for his portrayals of The Washington Post's Ben Bradlee in 1976's All the President's Men and novelist Dashiell Hammett in Julia in 1977.

Borge, who turned 90 last January, made his debut as Borge Rosenbaum, a soloist at 14 with the Philharmonic Orchestra of his native Copenhagen. Celebrated in Scandinavia for his musical humor before he was 30, he fled the Nazi advance with his American wife and was soon performing with Ed Sullivan, Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby.

Stevie Wonder is to be honored.

Wonder, a songwriter and singer, is "a musical genius who has been an integral part of American popular culture for the past four decades," said James A. Johnson, Kennedy Center chairman. At 49, he is the youngest of the five being honored.

Blind since birth, Wonder signed with Motown Records in 1963, when he was 11. As "Little Stevie Wonder", he began turning out hit records immediately. He was instrumental in the movement to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with a national holiday.

Jamison, 56, is a dancer, choreographer and teacher who has led the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater since its founder died in 1989. Ailey was honored by the Kennedy Center in 1988. Jamison was his biggest star for 15 years.