Golden Globes Awards: Meryl wins 7th Globe; Jeff Bridges, Kevin Bacon, Michael C. Hall finally win

There were plenty of winners worth celebrating at tonight’s Golden Globe Awards which, in several instances, were performers often overlooked at these affairs.

Best actor-drama winner Jeff Bridges said it best when he got one of the night’s few standing ovations: “You’re really screwing up my under-appreciated status here!”

Bridges, now the front-runner to finally win an Oscar for Crazy Heart, had the presence of mind to thank his stand-in for more than 50 movies as well as his father, the late Lloyd Bridges: “He loved showbiz so damned much, he encouraged all his kids to be in showbiz … so glad I listened to you dad.”

So are we.

Then there is Kevin Bacon who, unlike Bridges, has rarely even been nominated for acting awards despite several decades of outstanding work. He finally broke through tonight with the Globe for outstanding actor in a television movie or miniseries for Taking Chance.

Michael C. Hall also finally got an acting prize for his superb performance on Dexter. It had extra meaning because the actor has been battling cancer and wore a cap the ceremony: “It’s really a helluva thing to go to work at a place where everybody gives a damn,” he said. “It’s a dream job and I’m grateful.”

Drew Barrymore was so unaccustomed to winning awards for her acting that much of her speech was about how she didn’t know how to give a speech! She beat out her Grey Gardens co-star Jessica Lange and other heavy hitters in the outstanding actress in a television movie or miniseries category: “I know I can be like Jeff Spicoli’s girlfriend (Sean Penn’s character in Fast Times at Ridgemont High) … This is for all the people who were nice enough to love me and want the best for me along the way. I am humbled and honored.”

And finally, Meryl Streep, winner of outstanding actress in a motion picture – musical or comedy. She solidified her Oscar front-runner status with the Globe for Julie & Julia as legendary chef Julia Child.

“In my long career, I’ve played so many extraordinary women that basically I’m being mistaken for one,’ Meryl said. “I’m very clear that I’m the vessel for other people’s stories, other people’s lives. … I’ve got to secretly pay homage to my personal not-so-famous hero: my mother. … She had a real joy in living, she just had no patience for gloom and doom. I’m not like that. I come to Golden Globes weekend and I am conflicted how to have my happy movie self in the face of everything I’m aware of in the real world, and that’s when I have my mother’s voice coming to me: Partners in Health, shoot some money to Partners In Health, and be damn grateful you have the dollars to help.”

“And I am grateful. I’m really grateful.”

It’s hard to believe but until Meryl won the Golden Globe in 2003 for Adaptation, it had been 20 years between Globe wins. Since her victory that year, Meryl has once again become queen of the Globes with the win tonight and victories in 2004 for Angels in America and in 2007 for The Devil Wears Prada. Earlier in her career, she won for Kramer Vs. Kramer, The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Sophie’s Choice and been nominated a total of 25 times.