Kennedy Center Honors - Page 4

Loretta's husband, Oliver Vanetta Lynn, was known to his friends as Doolittle or as Mooney, for moonshine. He took Loretta to Custer, Washington, where the couple had their first of four children and Loretta continued her singing at home to her babies. Moved by his wife's talent, Mooney bought her a guitar for her eighteenth birthday. Loretta taught herself to play, began singing in local clubs and later with a band, The Trailblazers, which included Loretta's brother Jay Lee Webb. Mooney entered Loretta in a local talent contest that turned out to be her big break: An invitation from Buck Owens to sing on his television show. She was spotted by Don Grashey of Zero Records, who flew her to Los Angeles to make her first record. When the small label turned out to have no budget to promote "I'm A Honky Tonk Girl," which Loretta herself had written, the singer and her husband began mailing the record to radio stations across the country....

Mike Nichols:

For nearly half a century, Mike Nichols has had such a varied and profound effect on our culture that probably no American has been left untouched by his genius. His fabled partnership with Elaine May perfected American improvisation comedy. On Broadway he has directed some of the most acclaimed box office hits of the past four decades. As a producer, Nichols brought Whoopi Goldberg to Broadway, The Remains of the Day to the screen, "Family" to television, and the musical Annie to the world. He has directed many of our favorite films and at least two that dramatically changed not only the film industry itself, but also the way we looked at movies and the way they made us feel. His first film, the 1966 taboo-busting, Oscar-winning Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, famously put the final nail in the coffin of the stifling Motion Picture Production Code. With his second movie, The Graduate, Nichols created a box office sensation that made Dustin Hoffman a star and inaugurated a cycle of youth-oriented movies that ushered the American film into a new and vibrant era of creativity. The first got him an Oscar nomination, the second the award. Writing for the New York Times about Nichols' career in film, which now includes nearly 20 motion pictures, Caryn James said: "Beneath their apparent diversity, all of Mr. Nichols's films are concerned with the boundless promises of American life-money or justice or marital happiness—as filtered through middle-class, popular culture….But always Mike Nichols is the ultimate mainstream director, who senses the movement of American culture half a beat before the rest of us and, like a reconnaissance man, presents us with a map of the territory where we will all arrive shortly."
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