The Kennedy Center Dis-Honors

The good stuff: The Financial Times once called Ms. Cook, 84, the “greatest singer in the world” — probably because “greatest singer in the universe” would be rank hyperbole.

Career lowlight (I): From the annals of What Could Possibly Go Wrong? we bring you “Carrie: The Musical.” Staged in 1988 by the Royal Shakespeare Company — no, really — and blessed with an $8 million budget, the show was based on Stephen King’s horror novel about a picked-on, telekinetic teenage girl who showers revenge — and buckets of blood — upon her high school prom. On the show’s opening night in England, Ms. Cook was nearly decapitated by a stage prop, an incident that prompted her to resign, noting that “there isn’t a chance in hell they’ll be able to pull this off.” Smart move: “Carrie‘s” subsequent Broadway run was a legendary failure, later inspiring the title of the 1991 book “Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops.”

Career lowlight (II): Ms. Cook lent her voice to 1994’s “Thumbelina,” a box-office bomb of which film critic Roger Ebert quipped, “It is difficult to imagine anyone over the age of 12 finding much to enjoy in ‘Thumbelina.’ “

Relevant statistic: Twenty one — total number of previews (16) and performances (5) of “Carrie” on Broadway before it closed.

Quotable: The opening line of acerbic critic Frank Rich's “Carrie” review read, “Those who have the time and money to waste on only one Anglo-American musical wreck on Broadway this year might well choose ‘Carrie.’”

Sonny Rollins

The good stuff: Received National Medal of Honor in 2010; composed a number of jazz standards; won just about every award imaginable, from Grammys to the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art; had an official day named after him in Minneapolis; was honored by “The Simpsons” with a Bleeding Gums Murphy scene; legendary 1956 album titled “The Saxophone Colossus” was proof positive of the adage that it ain’t bragging if you can back it up.

Career lowlight: You know what? We couldn’t find a single disparaging word about the 81-year-old musician.

Quotable: Perhaps Osgood Fielding III had it all wrong.

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