Bob Dylan, Bill Murray and Henry Kissinger: when honourees don’t want their prize
ON Sunday night, the ever-elusive Bill Murray took the stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and accepted the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, an award he actively avoided receiving. Last week he told The Washington Post’s Geoff Edgers, “I really thought if I don’t answer the phone for awhile, maybe they’ll just move on to someone else.”
They didn’t. They called and called, and then had other people call, and eventually, Murray gave in.
This month, the same tactic was used by the Swedish Academy, which is responsible for awarding the Nobel prizes. Bob Dylan won the prize for Literature. The Academy called his manager. The press called his representatives. Dylan has yet to say a word.
“One can say that it is impolite and arrogant. He is who he is,” one of the Academy members told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
When the prize is bestowed on Dec 10, it appears there’s a good chance Dylan won’t show up. So will he still get to become the first musician to receive the Nobel for literature?
If the Academy follows the precedent set by the many award-giving institutions that have been snubbed throughout history, the answer is yes. In the world of prestigious prizes, the honour is yours whether you like it or not.
Pick any well-known award, and there’s a good chance its chosen winners haven’t all deigned to make themselves available for the ceremony. For some, the snub is a statement. When Marlon Brando won an Academy Award for The Godfather, he boycotted the ceremony and sent a Native American actress named Sacheen Littlefeather in his place. She took the stage, waved away the award and told the audience that Brando couldn’t accept the award because of the treatment of American Indians by the film industry.
Others seem to have little interest in the theatrics that usually surround award acceptance. Katharine Hepburn won four Oscars, but never showed up to claim them. “As for me, prizes are nothing,” she once said. “My prize is my work.” Woody Allen won’t show up to the Oscars, either. His biographer Eric Lax told NPR that’s because Allen, like his character in Annie Hall, quotes Sigmund Freud: “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.”