Tom Cruise, Oprah to Host Nobel Concert

By Stephen M. Silverman

10/13/2004 at 12:00 PM EDT

The dynamic duo of Tom Cruise and Oprah Winfrey will host December's traditional Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, honoring the 2004 laureate, Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, who became the first African woman to win the coveted peace prize.

"They really wanted to do it, right from the start," concert organizer Odd Arvid Stroemstad tells the Associated Press about Cruise, 42, and Winfrey, 50. "They clearly know what the Nobel concert is, and what the Nobel Peace Prize is about."

Also onstage for the Dec. 11 concert will be a roster of entertainers that so far includes Cyndi Lauper, Patti LaBelle, opera's Andrea Bocelli, jazz singer Diana Krall and British teen soul singer Joss Stone.

All the celebrities appear for free, though their expenses are covered. Last year's emcees were husband and wife Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Maathai, 64, was honored by the Nobel committee as founder of the Green Belt Movement, which has sought to empower women, improve the environment (by planting 30 million trees) and fight corruption in Africa for almost 30 years.