Cecil B DeMille 4 Meryl Streep
Thursday, November 3, 2016 at 9:15PM by Nathaniel R
For those craving their dose of La Streep this awards season, rest easy: even if she isn't Oscar nominated for Florence Foster Jenkins in an already highly competitive Best Actress race, she'll at least grace the Golden Globes. She's a shoo-in for a Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical category for her off-key diva and she'll also be this year's Cecil B DeMille Honoree. Remember that every year at some point during the broadcast they stop handing out awards and celebrate a whole career with clips and speeches. On Sunday January 8th, 2017, that section of the night belongs to Meryl...
Naysayers might point out that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has been celebrating Meryl Streep every year so this is a tad redundant.
She is the Golden Globe Queen with 29 nominations and 8 wins (3 wins for the 1980s, 4 for the Aughts and 1 this decade for The Iron Lady) across her 39 year film career. The only actor who comes anywhere close to challenging her for HFPA love is the late Jack Lemmon (23 nominations, 5 wins, plus a Cecil B DeMille)
Fun History Aside: The Golden Globes have honored more actresses with the Cecil B DeMille Award (14) over the years than the Academy has given Honorary Oscars to the same group (just 11)
ACTRESSES HONORED WITH THE GLOBES "CECIL B DEMILLE"
remember we use film years to denote ceremonies, not calendar dates
Judy Garland talking to Olivia de Havilland at the 1961 Golden Globes
Judy Garland (1961)
Joan Crawford (1969)
Bette Davis (1973)
Lucille Ball (1978)
Elizabeth Taylor (1984)
Barbara Stanwyck (1985)
Doris Day (1988)
Audrey Hepburn (1989)
Remember when Jodie Foster broke the internet with her Cecil B Demille speech?
Lauren Bacall (1992)
Sophia Loren (1994)
Shirley Maclaine (1997)
Barbra Streisand (1999)
Jodie Foster (2012)
Meryl Streep (2016)
ACTRESSES HONORED WITH HONORARY OSCAR
Excluding the "Jean Hersholt" which is for charity work
Lillian Gish got her Honorary Oscar on a night dominated by men. Patton was the big winner and the best actress winner (Glenda Jackson) wasn't presentGreta Garbo (1954)
Lillian Gish (1970)
Mary Pickford (1975)
Barbara Stanwyck (1981)
Sophia Loren (1990)
Myrna Loy (1990)
Deborah Kerr (1993)
Lauren Bacall (2009)
Angela Lansbury (2013)
Maureen O'Hara (2014)
Gena Rowlands (2015)
Actresses who've received the Jean Hersholt Huminatarian Award:
Technically these count as "honorary Oscars" but it's a different sort of honor since it's not actually for your acting or contributions to cinema but for your offscreen charitable efforts
Martha Raye
Rosalind Russell
Audrey Hepburn
Elizabeth Taylor
Oprah Winfrey
Angelina Jolie
and
Debbie Reynolds
Reader Comments (46)
She can't turn around without someone giving her a blue ribbon.
I think this level of acclaim is too much for one person...it's probably why she has always played it so safe with her career choices. There's no motivation to step outside of the box.
Would like to see the Hollywood *Foreign* Press honor more foreign actresses. Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppert, Catherine Deneuve, and Liv Ullmann would all be great choices.
"Hollywood Foreign Press Association has been celebrating Meryl Streep every year so this is a tad redundant." --- As it should be!!! I want to see this happen every freaking year.
I'm all for it, she clearly deserves the honour as much as anyone on that list of recipients.
Even better, this guarantees that we get a speech by Meryl who is always great value at these events. Naturally the TV ratings might even be higher. What's not to like?
ladyedith -- yes, this.
Mike -- yeah, a foreign goddess on occasion would be sweet.
@Mike ( and some to Nathaniel ) Boo!!! Hiss!
rick -- wait. Why do i get a boo hiss?
I think this is great. They have only chosen three women since 2000, and Streep is an obvious choice to follow Streisand and Foster since she too is a living legend. Now they can give out film awards to Meryl (honorary), Emma, Natalie, Viola, and Hugh, and make everyone happy.
People gripe about Streep and recognition, but her positive impact over multiple decades is enormous, and many of her films are iconic, pleasurable to watch, and memorable. Plus she broke the over 40 curse for women and became even more popular as a film star after 40.
With a new female President, this makes for a great start to 2017.
This is like a sad parody of everything that's terrible about these honorary awards.
Why reward someone who is *literally* the one person with the most nominations and awards again, as opposed to honouring someone who has a worthy career that has gone mostly unrecognized?
I have read this blog from the beginning ... I feel the subtle inference to this not being fair... I could be very wrong and apologize if I am....
somewhere, in a rehearsal room for sunset blvd, glenn close gets a little deeper in character...
Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppert, Catherine Deneuve and Liv Ullmann would all be great choices, but not Meryl Streep? Give me a break.
Don't forget to thank your makeup man and hairstylist. He's been with you since Sophie's Choice and you've worked pretty continuously together (every single movie in between).
Who's gonna present her award?
Viola or Anne Hathaway should do that honor.
Speaking of honorary Oscar, did Vanessa Redgrave get one in London with Streep as one of the presenter?
Oh Purrrleeze, she's got enough awards! Give it to someone else for sanity sake!
About time.
I feel this Golden Globe momentum ( not only the Demille but her 30th nomination)and increase in ratings ( Meryl brings it!) may be the thing that helps bump her into that 20th academy award nomination- are the Oscars just going to let the Globes honor her with a love fest this year while they snub? Don't bet on it Nathaniel! The Oscars made Meryl.
I am also curious if anyone has been given the Demille award on the same night also nominated in an acting category?
Also Nathaniel- I am loving all the FFJ ads on your site. Are theses ads for an Oscar campaign?
It's so weird to remember that, upon accepting her Golden Globe for 'Adaptation.', she not only quipped how she hasn't won anything "since the Pleistocene era" despite being nominated all the time, but was actually right about that.
YES QUEEN! CAN' T WAIT FOR THE SPEECH
So the Cecil B. DeMille Awards is an honorary Golden Globe given to someone who has had "outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment." So what is there to gripe about? If anything, Meryl is overqualified and should have received this a long time ago. It is one thing to be nominated for a competitive award and another to win for an award for that person's career achievement. If Jodie Foster, George Clooney, Denzel Washington can win the award, why not Meryl? I can name a few more recipients whom I think undeservedly won the award. We can all complain about her numerous nominations for just being in a movie but Streep deserves this one - this one award from an award-giving body that we all don't take seriously (winks).
Sophia Loren received De Mille when she was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Altman's Pret-A-Porter
I can't think of anyone more qualified for this award - have we forgotten this is the golden globes people??? I'm excited to watch her receive the award, make a brilliant speech and have a fabulous evening - suck it haters. Meryl is the most qualified person for this award and I cannot actually believe it's taken her this long to get it!
whether you're a huge fan or not, Meryl Streep is most definitely an icon. She's now a pop culture staple and will forever remain so. she is the actress that mainstream America looks up to as the Best in acting. It's a long glorious career based on genuine talent, hard work, smart choices and public charm skills. Give her those honorary awards! Good for her.
From 1999 to 2012 there were no actresses awarded. What a disgrace.
Meryl? It is absolutely well-deserved and it is also absolutely redundant.
It will definitively ignite her chances for Florence. Curious performance. It almost seems it was shot chronologically and by the middle of it she realized that the two guys were stealing her the movie so she decided to pull out the big guns for the final concert.
I love Streep, I love her speeches, but this is SO lazy.
Jane Fonda should have received this award by now. Sigh.
Wouldn't Julia Roberts have been a more fitting choice or is she too young and overrewarded,Lange would have been good or maybe someone like Rita Moreno or maybe a Brit like Glenda Jackson or Julie Christie or maybe Lee Grant.
It would've been great to give it to Huppert to help push for an Oscar nom for 'Elle'... although sadly most people in the US would be like Isabelle Who??
Honorary Award IS Academy's way to a make-up to those great actresses who never won a competitive Oscar. Period
Cecil DeMille is more about celebrating STARS & LEGENDS & QUEENS, who usually had already won many GGs!
We all know Queen Meryl will rec'v her Cecil DeMille someday (The GG LUV Her!!!!), better now than later
Great choice! A legend with brilliant perfomances in Kramer x Kramer, Sophie's Choice, Silkwood, A Cry in the dark, Postcards from the edge, Angels in America, The bridges of Madison County, Adaptation, The Devil wears Prada, Julie and Julia, Florence Foster Jenkins, among othres.
I expect a funny, brilliant speech.
Go and get it, Meryl!
The nay sayers can complain all they want ... but this is truly a deserved Honor for a great performer... she can do anything and has proven in it movie after movie... drama, comedy, musicality,etc. ... and do it well...
None of the aforementioned actresses can claim this pedigree...
@ 3rtful thank you ( seriously ) for not being negative on this award...
your comment about her hairdresser is fitting, as you know she did that when she won the Iron Lady oscar...
Hey-I got an email from Meryl Streep today. Oh wait, it's just her telling me who to vote for on Tuesday.
Unlike so many others who "peaked" in high school, this former Homecoming Queen is still racking up the wins. Geez (Mary) Louise!
It's about time. Three cheers for Streep!
@rick
Streep's legacy and agency are set in stone. No reason to complain about what she has over others considering the inevitability of many of the late career honors she's received. Again I thought I hated her but realize I dislike immensely the free pass she's given while other actresses are written off as less than when the domestic ecosystem of Hollywood displaced them like they do many talented women yearly.
@3rtful
What you say is true up to a point... she has not gotten roles by steamrolling others... Remember, until The Devi Wears Prada, she was not a box office draw... she lucked out and fortunately she has the talent. She has fought for women constantly to get better roles... she is not a producer who can always make that happen.
It's too bad Mike Nichols and Nora Ephron are no longer with us. Either/both of them would've been great choices to bestow the award. That said, if not her long-time make-up artist (great suggestion, by the way!), what about Dustin Hoffman? Stanley Tucci? Cher? I'd die and go to heaven (or hell) if Cher uttered the words, "Mary Louise Streep," once more, with feeling.
Mareko, you will go to heaven.
Meryl is the QUEEN of the Globes! *bows*
She won every female film category possible (Supporting, Lead:Drama and C/M) at least TWICE!
I don't care if people like her or not: she's the Homecoming Queen of the Globes, so yeah... the Cecil B. Demille award was just a question of time and well, the time is here.
Can't wait to hear her speech! 8)
I doubt Dustin Hoffman would be willing to present Streep with her award, considering the not-so-flattering comments she made about his attitude towards her when they were shooting Kramer vs Kramer. Jack Nicholson poor soul is out of the question, so some frequent co-stars like DeNiro or Tucci would be nice. There's also Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway or Amy Adams, or any combination thereof.
Madame President HRC should present this award.
Robert De Niro basically recycled the same speech for Meryl when he spoke at her AFI tribute and the Kennedy Center Honors. This is too important to hear the same speech AGAIN. I want a team of young A-list actresses each taking turns crying and extolling her magnificence. After an hour or two, I"ll be satisfied.
Nice. Well deserved. Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama in filmed tributes, with Emily Blunt presenting would be amazing.
I wish all the actors who had played her husbands, her lovers, her best friends, her sons and her daughters on films would just show up as a big group to honor her. Just the names will blow everyone's minds.
@jack. What a great idea!
I said this before, but I don't care lol. Agreeing to this DeMille tribute and solidifying your 20th Oscar nomination is beyond baller. I bow down to this Queen Bitch.
WHEN WILL UR FAVS
Mic drop.
@mareko Cher would be fantastic!
Cate Blanchett presenting the award to Meryl Streep would cause an interstellar actressexual sonic boom.