“There is no one more worthy of this award than Woody Allen,” said HFPA president Theo Kingma. “His contributions to filmmaking have been phenomenal and he is an international treasure.” 

The 77-year-old actor-writer-director-producer-composer-musician shows no signs of slowing down. In his more than 60-year career, he has seen 55 films, two Golden Globes wins and 11 nominations.

“Fame has many drawbacks and many advantages and it’s close, but the advantages just outweigh the drawbacks,” he told HFPA members when he met them recently. “Believe it or not, there are many terrible things about being famous and many wonderful things, too.

“In the end, the good things are better than the bad, so if you have the chance, it’s better to be famous.

Woody Allen

Woody Allen was born on December 1, 1935, as Allen Konigsberg, in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of 15, he started selling one-liners to gossip columns. After working as a stand-up comedian, he was hired to write What’s New Pussycat in 1965. He directed his first film, What’s Up, Tiger Lily? a year later. That, along with the James Bond spoof Casino Royale in 1967, which he co-wrote and acted in, launched one of the most successful and unusual careers in American filmmaking history. 

His subsequent movies included Bananas, Sleeper, Love and Death, Zelig, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Stardust Memories, Broadway Danny Rose, Mighty Aphrodite, Match Point and, more recently, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Midnight in Paris and his latest, Blue Jasmine—all of which, along with others too numerous to name, sprung from his fertile imagination and his filmmaking technique of few takes and short working days. 

He has, he says, a drawer full of notes and ideas for future movies and he is currently working on the next one, which will star Colin Firth, Emma Stone and Marcia Gay Harden and is as yet untitled. 

As the latest recipient of the Cecil B. De Mille Award, Woody Allen is following in illustrious footsteps. The first award went to the man it was named after, in 1952, the year his penultimate film, The Greatest Show on Earth, had its premiere.

Other recipients have included Walt Disney, Sidney Poitier, Henry Fonda, Paul Newman, Steven Spielberg, Robin Williams, Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro and last year, Jodie Foster.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association will honor Woody Allen with a tribute during the 71st Annual Golden Globe Awards, to be held on Sunday, January 12, 2014.