Robin Williams in Mork & Mindy, with Pam Dawber: The next recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award – the Golden Globes’ equivalent to the Honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement – Robin Williams has been a steady film actor for less than 25 years.- A big-screen actor since Robert Altman’s 1980 box office bomb Popeye – that’s less than a quarter of a century ago – Robin Williams will be the next recipient of the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award for career achievement.
Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement going to Robin Williams
Five-time Golden Globe winner Robin Williams will be handed the 2005 Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Golden Globes ceremony next Jan. 16.
Apart from a bit role in I. Robert Levy’s little-seen, all-but-forgotten 1977 comedy Can I Do It ‘Till I Need Glasses?, Williams’ first feature film appearance was as the titular character in Robert Altman’s 1980 critical and box office dud Popeye, co-starring Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl.
And that means one can take home a Cecil B. DeMille bust for lifetime achievement while having been around as a notable film personality for less than a quarter of a century.
Admittedly, that’s nothing new. For instance, when Charlton Heston was given the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1967, he had been in movies for all of 17 years. The following year’s recipient, Kirk Douglas, had been a Hollywood actor for 22 years.
Cecil B. DeMille Award honorees
The first Cecil B. DeMille Award recipient was DeMille himself, at the 1952 Golden Globes ceremony. That’s the year the veteran filmmaker’s all-star blockbuster and eventual Best Picture Oscar winner The Greatest Show on Earth came out.
Other honorees include Walt Disney, Mervyn LeRoy, Maurice Chevalier, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Gregory Peck, Alfred Hitchcock, Joan Crawford, Samuel Goldwyn, and Bette Davis.
In addition to Lucille Ball, Paul Newman, Laurence Olivier, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn, Jack Lemmon, Lauren Bacall, Robert Redford, and Sophia Loren.
Plus, more recently, Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Nicholson, Barbra Streisand, Al Pacino, Harrison Ford, and Gene Hackman.
Kirk Douglas’ son, Michael Douglas, in movies since the mid-1960s, took home the DeMille bust last year.
Robin Williams’ Golden Globes
Of note, Robin Williams’ Golden Globe wins were the following:
- Best Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy for Mork & Mindy (1978).
- Best Actor in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for Barry Levinson’s Good Morning Vietnam (1987).
- Best Actor in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King (1991).
- A Special Golden Globe for his voice performance in the Walt Disney Studios’ hit Aladdin (1992).
- Best Actor in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for Chris Columbus’ Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).
In addition, Robin Williams was named the Academy Awards’ Best Supporting Actor of 1997 for his work in Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting, a popular drama starring Matt Damon. At the Golden Globes, he lost to sentimental favorite Burt Reynolds for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights.
Williams was a Golden Globe loser five other times: for the TV comedy Mork & Mindy (in 1979), the comedies Moscow on the Hudson (1984) and Patch Adams (1999), and the dramas Dead Poets Society (1989) and Awakenings (1990).
“Robin Williams to Receive Cecil B. DeMille Award” notes
Golden Globes website.
Pam Dawber and Robin Williams Mork & Mindy image: Paramount Television | ABC.
“Robin Williams to Receive Cecil B. DeMille Award” last updated in May 2023.