Cappy McGarr is an Emmy-nominated author, a creator of the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize, the National Award for Humor, and The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize.
McGarr serves on the boards of The Foundation for the National Archives and The Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He serves on The Better Angels Board of Directors, filmmaker Ken Burns’ advisory board. McGarr has chaired a White House Fellows Regional Panel in 2012 and 2013 and has served as a panelist from 2009 to 2013.
McGarr was appointed by President Barack Obama to the board of trustees of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2011, and was previously appointed to the same post by President Bill Clinton, serving from 1996 to 2002. He is only one of two people that have been appointed to The Kennedy Center by two different Presidents. He is an executive producer and creator of The Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize, the nation’s highest honor for humor, now in its 16th year, which has been awarded to Billy Crystal, Will Ferrell, Steve Martin, and Richard Pryor, among others. He also is an executive producer and creator of The Library of Congress George Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the nation’s highest honor for popular song that is held each year, in the East Room of the White House which has been awarded to Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, and in 2013 Carole King. McGarr was nominated for a 2008-2009 Prime Time Emmy for The Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize Honoring George Carlin and nominated for a 2010 NAACP Image Award for The Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize Honoring Bill Cosby.
McGarr is married to Janie Strauss McGarr for 35 years, and has two daughters, Elizabeth McGarr McCue and Kathryn McGarr.