Director Martin Scorsese is receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the Golden Globes.
The award will be presented to Scorsese at the 67th annual Globes on Jan. 17.
Scorsese turns 67 next week and is an Academy Award winner for directing The Departed and a two-time Golden Globe winner for that film and Gangs of New York. He also was nominated for Oscars and Globes for such films as Raging Bull, Goodfellas and The Aviator.
Actress Vera Farmiga, who appeared in The Departed, made the announcement Thursday at a press conference in Beverly Hills. For Scorsese, filmmaking is a holy experience, she said.
He has the power to rouse a crowd and bring them along on his holy mission, Farmiga said. He considers it holy work, and cinema is his shrine. And he instills in the actors, in the crew, and everybody around him just what a powerful tool it is.
Past winners of the DeMille award include last year s recipient, Steven Spielberg, along with Warren Beatty, Anthony Hopkins and Michael Douglas.
Philip Berk, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which puts on the Globes, said that, for the first time, the Golden Globes will be broadcast live across the country, instead of tape-delayed on the West Coast.
The entire country will find out our winners at the exact moment, he said.
The Golden Globes will also have a host for the first time since 1995. Comic actor Ricky Gervais, whom Berk called a fabulous godsend, will host the show at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.
Nominations come out Dec. 15 for the Globes, Hollywood s second-biggest film honors after the Oscars.
