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Home , Blues Hall of Fame, Hollywood Walk of Fame

The Mississippi Arts + Experience (The MAX) is pleased to announce its inaugural Hall of Fame class. The eighteen artists chosen for the Hall are a diverse and inluential group of men and women, winning countless awards—a combined three Oscars, ive Pulitzers, one Nobel Prize, three Tonys and 56 Grammys. A soaring two stories tall, the Hall of Fame rotunda is the centerpiece of The MAX and will showcase these Mississippi legends.

Painter Walter Anderson (1903–1965) Author John Grisham (1955–) • Born in New Orleans, lived in Ocean Springs • Born in Jonesboro, AK, now resides in Oxford • Created drawings, paintings, block prints, and and Charlottesville, VA ceramics inspired by the Gulf Coast • Practiced law in Southaven for nearly a decade • Worked with his brothers at Shearwater Pottery, still in operation today • Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983–1990 • Posthumously awarded the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award in 1989 • Author of works such as A Time to Kill, The Firm, and The Pelican Brief • Smithsonian honored him with a retrospective show in 2003–2004 for his 100th birthday • Has won two Harper Lee Prizes for Legal Fiction and a Peggy V. Helmerich • 1991, Walter Anderson Museum of Art opens Distinguished Author Award in Ocean Springs • Serves on the Board of Directors for The Innocence Project Author William Faulkner (1897–1962) • Born in New Albany, grew up in Oxford Puppeteer (1936–1990) • Attended University of Mississippi for a year • Born in Greenville, spent much of childhood in • Spent time working in as a Leland screenwriter on ilms such as The Big Sleep, • Puppeteer, artist, director, producer, cartoonist a ilm deemed so signiicant that it was added • Worked for Sesame Street; created , to the National Registry in 1997 Elmo, and Bert and Ernie • Wrote works such as The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Absalom, Absalom! • Creator of , most notably of which is • Nobel Prize for Literature, only Nobel winner Sam from Mississippi • Won eight Emmys; one for his irst show, and Friends, three for The Muppet Show, four • Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies • Created both the Jim Henson Company and Actor (1937–) Jim Henson’s Creature shop, which continue • Born in Memphis, TN, raised in Charleston to operate successfully today • 1989, Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in • Inducted into Hollywood Walk of Fame in Driving Miss Daisy 1991, Kermit was inducted in 2002 • 2005, Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Million Dollar Baby Bluesman (1911–1938) • 2012, Cecil B. DeMille Award for “outstanding • Born in Hazlehurst contributions to the world of entertainment” • King of the Delta Singers • Created the Rock River Foundation nonproit • 1980, inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame • Co-owner of Ground Zero, a blues club in • 1986, inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Clarksdale Fame • 2006, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award • 2010, Rolling Stone ranked him among the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” 2118 Front Street Meridian, MS 39301 • Four of his songs made the Rock and Roll Hall 601-581-1550 of Fame list of “500 Songs that Shaped Rock msarts.org and Roll” Actor James Earl Jones (1931–) Soprano Leontyne Price (1927–) • Born in Arkabutla • Born in Laurel • Second African-American male to be nominated for • First African-American in a leading role in a televised Academy Award for Best Actor opera; irst African-American to return to the • First actor to win two Emmys in the same year within Metropolitan Opera in multiple leading roles the same drama category • Her recordings have earned her 19 , • 2002, awarded Kennedy Center honor more than any other classical singer • 2011, awarded an Honorary Academy Award • Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989 • 2015, Voice Arts Icon Award • Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Lyndon Johnson • Has won two Tony Awards and a Golden Globe Musician Jimmie Rodgers (1897–1933) Bluesman B.B. King (1925–2015) • Born in Meridian • Born in Berclair between Itta Bena and Indianola • The Father of Country Music • The King of the Blues • One of irst three inducted into the Country Music • 1984, inducted into Blues Hall of Fame Hall of Fame • 1987, inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame • Inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame, Rock and • 1987, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award Roll Hall of Fame, and Blues Hall of Fame • Honorary doctorates from six universities • His song Blue Yodel No. 9 was selected as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s “500 Songs that Potter George Ohr (1857–1918) Shaped Rock and Roll” • Born in Biloxi • Ranked number 33 on CMT’s “40 Greatest Men of • The “Mad Potter of Biloxi” Country Music” in 2003 • 1899, China, Glass, and Potter Review called him Actor Sela Ward (1956–) “one of the most interesting potters in the U.S.” • Born and raised in Meridian • Cited by famous ceramics teacher, Charles Binns, as a genius • Attended the University of Alabama • Never famous in his lifetime. Antiques dealer found • Four time Golden Globe winner for Best Actress his works in 1968, bringing him to the attention of • Two time Screen Actors Guild Award winner the art world • Winner of Four Emmy Awards • 2011, Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art opens in Biloxi • Performed in 19 ilms and 17 television programs including Sisters, CSI New York, and Graves Entertainer (1935–1977) • Born in Tupelo Bluesman (1915–1983) • The King of Rock and Roll • Born in Issaquena • Starred in 32 successful ilms • His song Rollin’ Stone, was so popular that it • 14 Grammy nominations, won three, and won the inluenced the name of a major music magazine and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1971 one of the world’s most famous rock bands. • Sold over one billion records globally • Won six Grammys • Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986), Country Music • 1980, inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame Hall of Fame (1998), Gospel Music Hall of Fame • 1987, inducted posthumously into the Rock and Roll (2001), Rockabilly Hall of Fame (2007), Memphis Hall of Fame Music Hall of Fame (2012) • 1992, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award • Won Blues Foundation Awards posthumously in 1994, 1995, 2000, 2002, 2006 Author Eudora Welty (1909–2001) Author Richard Wright (1908–1960) • Born in Jackson • Born in Roxie, near Natchez • Attended Mississippi State College for Women • 1939, awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (Mississippi University for Women) • 1941, received the prestigious Spingarn Medal from • Wrote The Golden Apples and The Optimist’s the NAACP Daughter • Wrote works such as Native Son, Black Boy, and • The Optimist’s Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize for Uncle Tom’s Children Fiction • Native Son was the irst book by an African- • Her 1984 autobiography sold over 100,000 copies American author to be selected by the Book of the • Her Jackson home is a National Historic Landmark Month Club and museum • 2009, featured on a U.S. postage stamp as the 25th installment of the literary arts series Author Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) • Born in Columbus, spent childhood in Clarksdale • Wrote The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof • A Streetcar Named Desire won a Drama Critics’ Award and a Pulitzer Prize • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof won Pulitzer Prize • 1979, inducted into American Theater Hall of Fame • 2009, inducted into the Poets’ Corner at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York • The Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival has been held annually in New Orleans since 1986; the Tennessee Williams Tribute has been held in Columbus since 2000 • Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter

Entertainer Oprah Winfrey (1954–) • Born in Kosciusko • Television host, actress, producer, philanthropist, and entrepreneur • 1988, established Harpo Studios, making her the third woman in the American entertainment industry to own her own studio • Initiated the National Child Protection Act in 1991 • Included in TIME’s “100 Most Inluential People in the World” lists from 2004–2011 • 2005, Business Week named her the greatest Black philanthropist in American history • 2013, Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama