Though the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's 2011 Golden Globes celebrated Tinseltown triumphs, New York was front and center at the winner's podium.
New York actors won statuettes for careers steeped in the city's cinematic history and for the year's best turns in dramatic roles. Groundbreaking television series and movies, filmed on location in Manhattan and Brooklyn, were also recognized at the 68th annual Golden Globes.
Early in the 2011 Golden Globes ceremony, the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire" won for Best Television Series - Drama; in accepting the award, co-executive producer Terence Winter thanked "his family and friends back in Brooklyn." The show is set in Atlantic City in the 1920s, but most scenes were shot on several historic Brooklyn locations--from a soundstage in Greenpoint to the John Wesley United Methodist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant (standing in for Babette's Nightclub) to early 20th-century brownstones in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District.
Actor Steve Buscemi, who plays "Boardwalk Empire"'s ruthless gangster Enoch "Nucky" Johnson, won for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama. It was his first Golden Globe nomination and win.
"Boardwalk Empire" beat out its New York-centric colleague, AMC's "Mad Men," in the Best Television Series category. Buscemi beat "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm, who plays Don Draper with effortless panache, while Katy Sagal of "Sons of Anarchy" edged out "Mad Men"'s Elisabeth Moss, who plays Draper's copywriter Peggy Olson. Surprisingly, the series went home empty-handed despite winning the best series Emmy and Golden Globe for the past three consecutive years.
Al Pacino, a New York icon if there ever was one, took home the 2011 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television for his portrayal of the controversial physician Dr. Jack Kevorkian in "You Don't Know Jack."
The Cecil B DeMille award was bestowed upon another New York icon, Robert De Niro, whose most memorable films highlight the gritty side of 1970s New York and the immigrant experience unique to the city. From the watershed classics--Taxi Driver, Godfather Part II, Raging Bull, Mean Streets--to latter day milestones like Goodfellas, Midnight Express, Cape Fear and the founding of the Tribeca Film Festival, De Niro's impact on cinema makes him New York City's de facto ambassador to Hollywood.
New Yorker Natalie Portman won for her freaky portrayal of a psychologically disturbed ballerina in "Black Swan." The Darren Aronofsky-directed thriller was filmed on location in New York, with scenes shot at Lincoln Center, the Julliard School and a particularly claustrophobic Upper West Side prewar apartment.
Insiders consider the 2011 Golden Globes an awards-season precursor to the 2011 Academy Awards, which air in February.
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