[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 49 (Monday, December 11, 2000)]
[Pages 2964-2967]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the Kennedy Center Honors Reception

December 3, 2000

    Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator. [Laughter] I'm trying to 
get used to that. I want to--[laughter]--look, I've got to take

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every opportunity I can to practice here. [Laughter]
    I want to welcome you all here, especially, of course, our honorees 
and other artists and former honorees; Members of Congress who are 
here--Senator and Mrs. Lott, welcome; we're glad to see you--and to all 
our other distinguished guests.
    As Hillary said, it has been a profound honor for us and a great joy 
to do these Kennedy Center Honors for 8 years in a row now. We thank the 
people we honor tonight and their predecessors for lifting our spirits 
and broadening our horizons.
    Thirty-eight years ago, President Kennedy wrote that ``art means 
more than a resuscitation of the past. It means the free and unconfined 
search for new ways of expressing the experience of the present and the 
vision of the future.'' Each in their own way, tonight's honorees have 
brought to a venerable art form a spark of the new and unexpected. And 
each has left it more modern, more brilliant, and forever changed for 
the better. Now, let me present them.
    Very few people visit the East Room, where we now are, and find 
themselves in danger of striking the 20-foot ceiling. [Laughter] But 
that is exactly what happened to Mikhail Baryshnikov when he arrived to 
rehearse for a White House performance in 1979. With a portable stage 
set up, even this stately ceiling was too low for his trademark soaring 
leaps. No ceiling or boundary, not even the Iron Curtain, has ever held 
him back for long.
    His successful performance of that night was televised for millions 
of Americans as ``Baryshnikov at the White House,'' another step towards 
cementing his reputation as the greatest male classical dancer of our 
time. With his daring leap to freedom in 1974, he also inspired millions 
with the idea of liberty, and he used his freedom to move beyond 
classical ballet to movies and to Broadway and, in 1976, to fulfill a 
lifelong dream by bounding onto the stage of American modern dance. And 
it has never been the same since.
    From ``Push Comes To Shove'' to his pathbreaking White Oak Dance 
Project, Mikhail Baryshnikov has pushed the boundaries of a challenging 
art form even as he has broadened its audience. He continues to give 
brilliant performances at an age when most of us are, frankly, being 
told to get our exercise in private. [Laughter]
    So tonight America says, thank you, Mikhail Baryshnikov, for the 
heights to which you have lifted the art of dance and the heights to 
which you have lifted all of us. Thank you.
    No less an authority than John Lennon once said, ``If you tried to 
give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry.'' 
[Laughter] The Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones all copied 
him, but Chuck Berry was the original. He fused country and blues into a 
new sound that was distinctly American and utterly new. And 40 years 
later, the Chuck Berry sound still blazes across our stages and from our 
radios.
    He is, quite simply, one of the 20th century's most influential 
musicians. His guitar riffs were some of rock's first, and they're still 
some of its greatest. His stage moves, especially the duckwalk, which he 
invented, are often imitated, sometimes intentionally--[laughter]--but 
never equalled. His fresh and vivid lyrics captured American life, 
whether you're rich or poor, young or not so young, and they suggested 
the rhythms of a new and better day for black and white Americans alike. 
NASA even sent Chuck Berry's music on a space probe searching for 
intelligent life in outer space. [Laughter] Well, now, if they're out 
there, they're duckwalking. [Laughter]
    It was my great honor to invite Chuck to play at both my inaugurals 
and my 25th reunion at Georgetown University, which we held here on the 
White House grounds. I, too, have loved him for more than 40 years. So 
we say, thank you, Chuck Berry, for making us laugh, making us shout, 
making us dance, and making us happy together. Thank you.
    These days you hear a lot of people saying we need to change the 
tenor here in Washington. [Laughter] They are not talking about Placido 
Domingo. [Laughter] We are truly blessed to have him as artistic 
director, as a conductor, and still performing as one of the greatest 
operatic tenors of all time.
    It is almost now impossible to imagine opera without him. He has 
performed 118 roles, probably more than any other tenor

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ever. He is still adding new ones. He has set new standards, and he has 
worked unceasingly to bring opera to a wider audience through movies, 
television, and live concerts, and of course, especially as one of the 
famed Three Tenors. Their concerts have brought operatic singing to an 
audience of one billion people across the globe. Think about it: one in 
six people has thrilled to the sound of this man's voice.
    But he has always been more than a voice. As a young man, he 
prepared for later life in Washington as an amateur bullfighter. 
[Laughter] Now, instead of a cape, however, he waves the baton, which 
means that he is the only person in Washington who gets at least a 
finite group of people to do what he tells them to do. [Laughter]
    As a visionary artistic director of opera here in Washington and in 
Los Angeles, a frequent performer around our Nation, he has truly 
sparked the rebirth of American opera. And he has shared his prodigious 
gifts wider, in support of disaster relief efforts from Armenia to 
Acapulco. Through his annual vocal competition he has championed young 
singers all over the world and has worked to bring opera to places it 
has never before been heard.
    So we say thank you--thank you, Placido Domingo, for sharing with us 
your matchless artistry and for being a true citizen of the world.
    For more than 35 years now, Clint Eastwood has been one of America's 
favorite movie stars. Of course, he's also an Oscar-winning director. 
He's actually done pretty well for a former elected official. [Laughter] 
I hope I am half as successful. [Laughter]
    I think he didn't keep running for office because he realized once 
you get in politics, you can't do what he did in most of his movies to 
your adversaries--[laughter]--although you can wish to do it, from time 
to time. [Laughter]
    His path to stardom began with bit parts in movies that starred a 
tarantula and a talking mule. His break came in the spaghetti western 
``A Fistful of Dollars,'' an Italian movie filmed in Spain, based on a 
classic Japanese film. [Laughter] But the rest is history for the 
Italians, the Spanish, the Japanese, and most of all, for the Americans.
    ``The Man With No Last Name'' has truly become a household name. His 
characters have ranged the peaks and valleys of human experience, from 
urban vigilantes to mythical cowboys, from troubled artists to Secret 
Service agents. And while he keeps making top-grossing movies, Clint 
Eastwood also keeps taking risks, playing against type, making small, 
thoughtful films that no one else would, quietly building a second 
career as one of our best directors, composing songs for five of his 
movies, and turning his lifelong love of jazz into a movie about the 
legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker.
    Like the strong, silent cowboy he so often played, Clint Eastwood 
has become a quiet force in American film and a star for the ages. We 
thank you, Clint Eastwood, for giving us a lot to cheer about and 
lately, a lot to think about. Thank you very much.
    Earlier this decade, TV Guide gave Angela Lansbury a perfect 100 on 
its lovability index. [Laughter] Now, that's what we need more of in 
Washington. [Laughter] There's no mystery why. She's known and adored by 
tens of millions of viewers as Jessica Fletcher on ``Murder She Wrote.'' 
But fans who have followed her remarkable career know her just as well 
as Broadway's greatest stage mother of them all, Gypsy Rose Lee. And 
everyone who loves movies about politics remembers her brilliant 
performances in ``The Manchurian Candidate'' and ``State of the Union.''
    The United States was lucky to welcome Angela Lansbury to our shores 
as a child refugee from the Nazi bombing of London in 1940. Just 4 years 
later, she made her first movie and won her first Oscar nomination. She 
went on to earn two more and became an acclaimed actress in an 
impressive variety of roles.
    Hollywood alone couldn't hold her. She conquered Broadway in 
``Mame'' and went on to win four Tony Awards. Then she found television, 
and ``Murder She Wrote,'' which began in 1984, continued for 12 
successful seasons.
    Over her career her acting has given us a window into the full range 
of human emotion and experience. Her inventiveness and courage have 
inspired her colleagues, and her commitment to charity, especially the 
fight against AIDS, should inspire us all.

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    Well, Angela, you earned your perfect score. And we thank you for a 
wonderful lifetime of gifts.
    Well, there they are, ladies and gentlemen: Mikhail Baryshnikov, who 
soared out of the Soviet Union and into our hearts; Chuck Berry, who 
rock-and-rolled his way from segregated St. Louis into the American 
mainstream; Placido Domingo, who brought the songs from Spain and 
changed the tenor of America's music; Clint Eastwood, who rose out of 
Depression-era California to earn a place on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; 
and Angela Lansbury, who left her childhood home in England to become 
American royalty.
    Each one has given us something unique and enriched us beyond 
measure. Together they bring us closer to President Kennedy's vision of 
art as a great unifying and humanizing experience. Their triumphs have 
lifted our Nation and left us a better and richer place.
    Again let me say to all of you, this night and every night before it 
has been a profound honor for Hillary and me. You may find people who do 
this night better in the future; you will never find anybody who loves 
it as much.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 6 p.m. in the East Room at the White House. 
In his remarks, he referred to Patricia Thompson Lott, wife of Senator 
Trent Lott.