Eddie Murphy will receive the Kennedy Center’s 2015 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Murphy will be honored with the 18th annual prize at a gala performance Oct. 18 featuring as yet unnamed comedians. The program will be televised nationally.
Murphy, 54, was a teenager when he helped reinvigorate “Saturday Night Live” with his impressions of James Brown and Michael Jackson and such characters as Little Richard Simmons — a composite of the singer and the fitness guru — and Mr. Robinson of “Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood.” . . .