High-Fived

Hollywood, Nashville, Motown and D.C. Blend at Gala Tribute

Aretha Franklin belted out "A Natural Woman" for Smokey Robinson while Sarah Brightman serenaded Andrew Lloyd Webber with "Memory." The Israel Philharmonic paid homage to Zubin Mehta by playing a Viennese waltz. Jessica Simpson warbled "9 to 5" for Dolly Parton. And, in the only non-musical act of the night, Tom Hanks outed Steven Spielberg for poaching his first office at Universal Pictures.

And the president actually got into the groove when the Temptations sang "My Girl."

It was the artistic equivalent of "This Is Your Life" last night at the Kennedy Center Honors gala, that chestnut of a ceremony for five people whose colleagues and admirers assemble to point out what the box office already knows: They're stars in a galaxy all their own.

To a degree, it's become something of a glittery exercise in back-scratching among the icons of entertainment. This year, there's Smokey Robinson (who saluted Stevie Wonder a few years back), Dolly Parton (showed up for Carol Burnett's award), Zubin Mehta (feted composer Leonard Bernstein 26 years ago), Steven Spielberg (here two years ago when John Williams was an honoree) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (okay, his first appearance, but it seems like he ought to have been here before).

Which might prompt one to ask: If everybody is somebody, then is nobody anybody? But this, of course, is missing the point. For as long as there is expansive artistic talent in the world to celebrate, an enlightened society should recognize it, the thinking of the Honors program goes.

And so it was last night before a Kennedy Center Opera House packed with more than 2,000 people, where the honorees were each treated to an egalitarian 17-minute 50-second homage by their peers. The production was more CBS than PBS, but on a night when A-list spotting is as much the fun as the performance, that seemed to suit the audience just fine. (CBS will air the show in a two-hour special on Dec. 26.)

"The poet laureate of love," as Franklin called Robinson, smiled when she introduced his old producer Berry Gordy, who saluted Robinson with a double-pump of fists into the air.

Then they rolled out the songs . . . "Going to a Go-Go," "Tears of a Clown" and "Shop Around," as Laura Bush, and Condoleezza Rice seated behind her in the president's box, nodded their heads from side to side.

"What a sound!" said 1993 honoree Arthur Mitchell, choreographer and founder of Dance Theatre of Harlem, seated in the audience.

There was a tribute to Parton by Reese Witherspoon, who told the story of meeting Dolly for the first time in the home of Johnny and June Carter Cash.

"I stepped into this temple of country music, awed and moved, and there standing, a surprise orchestrated by friends, was Dolly Parton," Witherspoon said. "I burst into tears. And in that moment that followed you didn't get in the way of all my tears, you stretched out your arms and I came to you, and you just said, while you were hugging me tight, 'I'm just happy to be here with you.' "

It was a night to be embraced by old friends, and lovers, as was the case with Andrew Lloyd Webber. After one of the most gracious introductions ever by an ex-wife, in which Sarah Brightman proceeded to describe the composer as "funny, boyish, self-effacing, adorable, complicated, passionate, exasperating, lovable, explosive, demanding, sensitive and often extremely outrageous," she then explained that all of those traits were in the service of a "search for the melody that lifts the story onto the stage."