Mark Twain prize for Carol Burnett

Carol Burnett, the award-winning actress, comedian and Broadway performer, has been chosen by the Kennedy Center for the 2013 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the center announced Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.

She is the first woman to win both the Mark Twain Prize and the Kennedy Center Honors, which she won in 2003. (Fellow winners of the Mark Twain Prize -- Bill Cosby, Neil Simon and Steve Martin -- have also won the Kennedy Center Honors.)

The 80-year-old is best known as the star of her eponymous variety show, "The Carol Burnett Show," which became one of the most decorated programs in television history, winning 25 Emmy Awards and averaging 30 million viewers each week during its 11-year run from 1967 to 1978. She will be honored Oct. 20 at an awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center, which PBS will broadcast Oct. 30.

"I can't believe I'm getting a humor prize from the Kennedy Center," Burnett said in a statement. "It's almost impossible to be funnier than the people in Washington."

Burnett is the 16th winner of the award, although the selection of Burnett marks a change for the Kennedy Center, which has given the comedy award to relatively young recipients in recent years. Once billed as a lifetime achievement award for comedians, the Kennedy Center awarded the honor to Tina Fey in 2010, making her the youngest recipient of the Mark Twain Prize at only 40 years old.

Since then, the awardees have skewed young, with Will Ferrell, then 44, winning in 2011, and Ellen DeGeneres receiving last year's award when she was 54.