It was announced this morning that funnyman Mel Brooks, 86, has been named the recipient of the 41st American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award, which will be awarded at a tribute gala on June 6. It will be televised on TNT in late June, with encore airings on TNT’s sister network, Turner Classic Movies.
The gala will honor “America’s long-reigning king of comedy,” according to a statement released this morning by Howard Stringer, chairman of AFI’s board of trustees, Deadline reports.
This award is the highest honor to receive for a career in film, and it will only add to Brooks’ already impressive resume, in which he is one of few people to boast an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony).
The writer-producer-director-actor is the man behind comedic film, TV, and theater gold such as Blazing Saddles, The Producers, Spaceballs, Young Frankenstein, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and Your Show of Shows.
“He’s a master of an art form that rarely gets the respect it deserves,” Stringer says, “and it is AFI’s honor to shine a bright light on laughter.”
Follow Sydney on Twitter @SydneyBucksbaum
[Photo Credit: WENN]
More:
David Oyelowo on Daniel Day-Lewis in ‘Lincoln’: It Was ‘Like Going in a Time Machine’
Adele’s ‘Skyfall’ Released in Full: That’s Not a Bond Theme, THIS is a Bond Theme
