Honoré Jon Stewart poses for photos on the red carpet Sunday night before the 23rd annual Mark Twain Awards for American Humor at the Kennedy Center.
Jon Stewart was honored with the 23rd annual Mark Twain Award for American Humor on Sunday night during a star-studded program at the Kennedy Center that paid tribute to his extensive acting career and social activism.
Many of Stewart’s friends, collaborators and fans were in attendance, including Dave Chappelle, Steve Carell, Pete Davidson, Kim Kardashian, Bruce Springsteen, Samantha Bee, Jimmy Kimmel, Olivia Munn and Gary Clark, Jr.
As host and executive producer of Comedy Central’s The daily show with Jon Stewart, Stewart and The daily show racked up a collective 56 Emmy nominations and won 20 times during its 16-year run. Along the way, he also became a best-selling author and winner of the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
Stewart is also known to be a dedicated social activist. His advocacy on the Hill was instrumental in passing the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund Bill and he is a strong supporter of injured American veterans through initiatives such as the Wounded Warrior Project and the Rubicon team.
In fact, it was 9/11 first responder John Feal and retired Air Force Master Sgt. Israel Del Toro, a veteran injured in an IED explosion in Afghanistan in 2005, who presented Stewart with his real Mark Twain Award (a copy of an 1884 bronze bust of Mark Twain sculpted by Karl Gerhardt) on stage Sunday evening.
First awarded to Richard Pryor on October 20, 1998, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor “recognizes individuals who have impacted American society in a manner similar to the eminent 19th-century novelist and essayist Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain.” Twain was a keen observer of people and used the characters he created to satirize and comment on the social injustices and follies of his day.
Past winners include Whoopi Goldberg (2001), Bob Newhart (2002), Lily Tomlin (2003), Lorne Michaels (2004), Steve Martin (2005), Neil Simon (2006), Billy Crystal (2007), George Carlin ( 2008), Bill Cosby (2009; canceled 2018), Tina Fey (2010), Will Ferrell (2011), Ellen DeGeneres (2012), Carol Burnett (2013), Jay Leno (2014), Eddie Murphy (2015), Bill Murray (2016), David Letterman (2017), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (2018) and Dave Chappelle (2019).
This year’s program will air nationally on PBS on June 21 at 9 p.m.
