“I am just stunned that this happened, and on this particular day,” said Sonia Manzano, who played Maria on Sesame Street for 44 years until retiring in 2015. “I think that a sweeter man was never born.”
Philip Bailey, Maurice White, and Ralph Johnson of Earth, Wind & Fire, Sally Field, Linda Ronstadt, Abby, Big Bird, Elmo, and Sesame Street creators Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett, and Michael Tilson Thomas. Photo: John P. Filo/CBS Elmo came to the Kennedy Center Honors wearing a single yellow feather on his tuxedo lapel. So did Ernie, and so did Bert, and so did Cookie Monster and Abby Cadabby, who had one affixed to her shiny blue dress.
Though Spinney’s death didn’t cast a pall over the ceremony. Big Bird himself even showed up — he’s now portrayed by Matt Vogel — but he did not talk to reporters; a Kennedy Center press representative told a gaggle of journalists that Big Bird doesn’t do red-carpet interviews. The feathered behemoth did, however, engage in a funny bit with Tom Hanks during the show in which he claimed the star of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, a.k.a. Mister Rogers, had stolen his seat.
The celebration of Earth, Wind & Fire — highlighted by performances from John Legend, Cynthia Erivo, Ne-Yo, and, no, this is not a misprint, the Jonas Brothers doing “Boogie Wonderland” — noted that the band’s founder, Maurice White, died in 2016 from the effects of the same disease that afflicts Ronstadt: Parkinson’s.
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