VIDEO: Meryl Streep Receives Cecil B. deMille Award; Watch Moving Acceptance Speech

At tonight's #GoldenGlobes we honor Hollywood legend Meryl Streep with the prestigious Cecil B. Demille Award. pic.twitter.com/dxpeCDNXY6

— Golden Globe Awards (@goldenglobes) January 9, 2017

Tonight, actress Meryl Streep was the recipient of the Cecil B. deMille Award of the 74th Golden Globes. With eight Golden Globes and 29 nominations, Streep is an icon of the performing arts. Below, watch Viola Davis' introduction and Meryl Streep's moving acceptance speech from tonight's broadcast. (Click here to read the full transcript to the speech.)

For almost 40 years, Meryl Streep has portrayed an astonishing array of characters in a career that has cut its own unique path from the theater through film and television.
She began her professional life on the New York stage, where she quickly established her signature versatility and verve as an actor. Within three years of graduation, she made her Broadway debut, won an Emmy (Holocaust) and received her first Oscar nomination (The Deer Hunter). In 2015, Streep was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her role as The Witch in Into the Woods, marking her 28th recognition by the HFPA. In the same role, she earned her 19th Academy Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. The three-time Academy Award-winner was recently seen in Stephen Frears' Florence Foster Jenkins.

Streep received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, a 2008 honor from the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the 2010 National Medal of Arts from President Obama. In 2011, Streep received a KENNEDY Center Honor, and in 2014 the Presidential Medal of Freedom.