The Associated Press

Larry King will receive the True Grit Award next month from the John Wayne Cancer Institute at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica.

The 73-year-old host of CNN’s ”Larry King Live” will receive the honor at the annual Odyssey Ball, to be held April 14 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Jamie Lee Curtis will host the event.

”How fitting that in 2007, as we commemorate the centennial of my dad’s birth, we also pay tribute to another great American, Larry King, with this award,” board Chairman Patrick Wayne said in a statement.

Since the Odyssey Ball began 22 years ago, the gala has helped raise more than $14 million to support the institute’s cancer research and treatment programs.

”Larry King epitomizes the strengths and qualities that characterized my father, and for which the True Grit Award was created — uncompromising integrity and a commitment to the values of our great country,” Patrick Wayne said.

The institute was founded by the Wayne family in 1981 to honor the wishes of the actor, who died of stomach cancer in 1979.