London, Dec 12 : Veteran comedian Jerry Lewis will be honoured with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy Awards ceremony on February 22.

The Hersholt Award recognises humanitarian efforts which bring credit to the film industry - and was last given to producer Sherry Lansing in 2007.

Through his annual Labor Day telethon, the 82-year-old `Nutty Professor' star has raised over 2 billion dollars for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, reports BBC.

Los Angeles  - Legendary US comedian Jerry Lewis, 82, is to receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscar ceremony in February 2009.

Actor, director, writer and producer Lewis will receive the award at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony on February 22, Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday.

The award is an actual Oscar statuette, and is given to a person whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the film industry. Lewis has never been nominated for an Academy Award.

Comedian Jerry Lewis, 82 currently in Australia for a stage show that takes a retrospective look at his career, has gone and done it again.  Mr. Lewis after a news conference last Friday, asked to comment on Australia’s most popular sport while miming swinging a cricket bat effeminately, responded: ‘Oh, cricket?  It’s a fag game.’  This comes hard on the heels of his last year’s anti-gay comments made during his annual telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

The comment and gesture broadcast on Australian channel Network Ten’s telecast last night has The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Australian Coalition for Equality calling for an apology.