Warren Beatty gets prestigious DeMille Award

updated 11:24 a.m. ET Jan. 16, 2007

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - It’s been 45 years since the Hollywood Foreign Press Association pulled Warren Beatty from near obscurity, and presenter Tom Hanks wouldn’t let anyone forget those years long ago.

Beatty, who will be 70 on March 30, was presented the association’s Cecil B. DeMille Award by Hanks for his “outstanding contribution to the entertainment field.”

Hanks kept getting in dig after dig about Beatty’s longevity. In 1962, a year after the release of “Splendor in the Grass,” Beatty was picked as the “Most Promising Newcomer” by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who give out the Globes.

“The folks we all know as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are nuts. They’re cuckoo. They’re scary. They’re very scary, especially when it comes to their ability to peer deep into the future,” Hanks said.

“In 1962, they peered into their leaves of tea and they rubbed their Ouija boards and they named Warren Beatty as that year’s most promising newcomer — once again 1962,” Hanks said.

Hanks then read the litany of Beatty accomplishments.

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Beatty has won Golden Globes in the past, including comedy actor for “Heaven Can Wait,” director for “Reds,” producer of best drama “Bugsy,” producer of best comedy “Heaven Can Wait.”

Other Beatty movies include “Shampoo,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Bulworth” and “Dick Tracy.”

Time for another comeback?
The DeMille Award puts him in good company. Previous winners include Anthony Hopkins, Robin Williams, Michael Douglas, Gene Hackman, Harrison Ford, Al Pacino, Barbra Streisand and Jack Nicholson.

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“Warren Beatty has been the actor and the producer and the director and the screenwriter — in fact, he’s been the man many of us have strived to be ourselves,” Hanks said, emphasizing again the year 1962.

It was then time for Beatty to take the stage.

“Forget about Hanks, I’ve got bottles of moisturizer older than Tom Hanks,” said Beatty, who also noted earlier, “It isn’t easy being humble when you’re married to Annette Bening.”

The couple have four children.

“Truth is, I haven’t made a lot of movies,” Beatty said. “I fact, I think somebody said about me that every single movie that I made from the beginning was a comeback. So, something like this really is enough to make a guy go out and make another movie.”

Beatty said he didn’t know why other seasoned actors like Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman couldn’t take it a little easier.

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“I don’t know why they can’t just do what I ask them to do. I asked Arnold [Schwarzenegger] to become a Democrat and he did what I said,” Beatty said, to laughter and applause.

“Of course I’m going to make another movie,” he said, and then asked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to consider something.

“By the time ... I deliver another movie, you might consider just making me the first person in the entire history of Hollywood to win the Most Promising Newcomer Award again. Yes? I like. Huh?”

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