‘Walk the Line,’ ‘Brokeback’ win Golden Globes

The two drama acting winners — Geena Davis of “Commander in Chief” and Hugh Laurie of “House” — showed their talents for comedy in acceptance speeches true to the impish, often lubricated spirit of the Golden Globes.

Davis, who portrays President Mackenzie Allen on the rookie ABC show, said a little girl in a party dress told her on the way into the show that “because of you, I want to be president some day.”

The audience reacted with a theatrical “ahhhhhh.”

“That didn’t actually happen,” Davis said, “but it could have. It very well could have.”

Reed Saxon / AP Hugh Laurie poses with the award he won for best actor in a television drama series for his work on "House."

Laurie, who masks his British accent to play the brilliant but difficult doctor in “House,” said he had 172 people to thank. So he said he wrote their names on slips of paper and would choose three at random. He thanked the show’s script supervisor, hair stylist and, finally, his agent.

“That’s not my handwriting,” he said. “Oh, he’s good.”

Steve Carell, whose surprise win for actor in a comedy could boost NBC’s struggling “The Office,” trumped them both.

“Wow!” he said. “I really did not expect this so I didn’t write anything. However, my wife did and handed me this.”

To growing laughs, Carell thanked his wife four times for, among other things, giving him two wonderful children “as painful as her labor might have been.”

The HBO miniseries about a struggling New England town, “Empire Falls,” won a Globe, and so did venerated actor Paul Newman for his supporting role as the father figure.

Elvis Presley was in the building, spiritually at least, when Jonathan Rhys-Meyers won best actor in a TV movie for the lead in CBS’ “Elvis.” S. Epatha Merkerson, who played a rooming house operator in HBO’s “Lackawanna Blues,” won best actress in a TV movie.

“I feel like I’m 16,” said Merkerson, 53. “And if I weren’t in the middle of a hot flash, I’d believe that.

The bubbly Sandra Oh of ABC’s hit medical soap opera “Grey’s Anatomy” almost lost sight of the stage in trying to retrieve her supporting actress award.

“I feel like someone set me on fire!” she said.

The Globes are awarded by the relatively small Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which has about 80 members, compared with the 5,800 film professionals eligible to vote for the Oscars.

Still, the Globes have an excellent track record at predicting the Oscars. Globe winners catch momentum that can boost their chances come Oscar night.

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