On March 5, 1962, Judy Garland became the first woman awarded the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in film.
On March 5, 1962, during the 19th Golden Globe Awards, Judy Garland was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's most prestigious lifetime achievement honor, becoming the first woman ever to receive it.
Established in 1952, the award had previously been presented exclusively to male figures in the film industry, including directors, producers, and actors who had made outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment. Garland's selection recognized her extraordinary body of work spanning more than three decades, from her breakout child stardom in the 1930s through her Oscar-nominated dramatic performances of the 1950s and early 1960s.
This milestone was significant not merely as a personal honor but as a symbolic breakthrough for women in the film industry, acknowledging that a female performer's decades-long contribution to cinema could be considered equal in stature to that of the industry's most celebrated men. Garland's DeMille Award came at a moment of major career resurgence, following her Oscar-nominated performance in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and shortly before her historic Grammy sweep later that same month. Her win paved the way for other actresses to receive the honor in subsequent decades.