Carol Burnett to receive lifetime achievement award at the SAG Awards

The actors? union announced Monday, July 20, 2015, that Burnett will receive its 52nd Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual SAG Awards in January.

“We all hail Carol as the queen for a lot of reasons”.

And now Burnett. You know she’ll give a great acceptance speech.

“Carol Burnett is a creative dynamo and a comedic genius”, SAG-AFTRA President Ken Howard said in a press release. “Carol has delighted and inspired millions of viewers and thousands of comedic actors”. She took risks as a performer and through her courage, encouraged fellow actors to try new things and always, always reach for the sky.

Burnett’s show ran for 11 years, averaging 30 million viewers a week and receiving 25 Emmy Awards, making it one of the most honored shows in television history.

Burnett made her Broadway debut in “Once Upon a Mattress”, in 1959 and also has numerous film credits to her name, including the popular role of Miss Hannigan in the 1982 film of the musical “Annie“. These episodes have never been distributed.

The award, which will be handed out in January at the SAG Awards, is routinely given to an actor who fosters the “finest ideals of the acting profession”. She is also working on her fourth book, In the Sandbox, due to be released in 2016. It has been presented annually since 1962 (with the exception of 1964 and 1981). Since 2000, eight of the 16 recipients of the Life Achievement Award have been women: Ruby Dee (2000), Shirley Temple (2005), Julie Andrews (2006), Betty White (2009), Mary Tyler Moore (2011), Rita Moreno (2013), Debbie Reynolds (2014) and now Burnett (2015).

The annual awards show hails the best performances of the previous year on film and TV.

The Screen Actors Guild, which merged with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in 2012 to form SAG-AFTRA, represents 160,000 actors, broadcasters, dancers, recording artists and other performers.