Jane Fonda to receive Cecil B deMille Award at 2021 Golden Globes

The announcement came on Tuesday from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Jane Fonda is set to be honored with the Cecil B deMille Award at the 2021 Golden Globes.

The announcement came on Tuesday, 26 January from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

“Her undeniable talent has gained her the highest level of recognition, and while her professional life has taken many turns, her unwavering commitment to evoking change has remained,” HFPA president Ali Sar said in a statement.

The 83-year-old actress, who is the daughter of Oscar winner Henry Fonda and the sister of Peter Fonda, is one of the most recognisable stars in Hollywood, having performed in film and television and advocated for social and political issues for the better part of six decades.

More recently, Fonda has starred opposite Lily Tomlin on the Netflix comedy Grace and Frankie, which earned her an Emmy nod for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series in 2017.

Over the years, Fonda has been an avid anti-war activist, campaigning against the Vietnam War in the 1970s and the Iraq War in the 2000s. She is also a public environmentalist; in 2019, she was arrested four times for protesting climate change outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC.  

"Oh, I just feel damn lucky,” she told The Guardian in 2018 of her career longevity. “I retired for 15 years. I left at 50 and came back at 65. I was married to Ted Turner and Ted didn’t really help me with confidence and things like that. So after that I wanted to see if I could enjoy it again. But, at 65, I never thought I’d have a career. And a hit TV show! I’m 80! I keep pinching myself! I can’t believe it! I didn’t think I would live this long!”

The 2021 Golden Globes are scheduled to air on Sunday, 28 February on NBC. Past recipients of the Cecil B deMille Award include Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, Denzel Washington, Martin Scorsese, and Audrey Hepburn.