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Entertainment December 5, 2016
Chelsea Handler has won her first major award and used the acceptance speech to say success comes from speaking up to get your own way.
“We have voices, use them. Speak up for yourself, be loud and scream until you get what you want,” she told the audience while clutching her career achievement prize at the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards.
Having been a stand-up comedian, best-selling author and talk show host, Handler now has exactly what she wants: full creative control over her own show, “Chelsea” on Netflix.
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“It’s nice to be given that license, to be able to make the show I want … I’ve got my own life. I don’t have anyone to answer to and it feels nice,” she said.
Accepting the Luminary Award for her wide range of successes in entertainment, she told the audience at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, “I don’t often win awards. I’m hoping this will be the first of many but it may be the first and last.” Handler had only won awards for her stand-up comedy in the past.
She was presented with her prize by “Orange is the New Black” actor Jason Biggs who, in a humorous speech, said, ” I am a jealous and competitive actor who roots for others to fail but I’m happy to present this award to my friend Chelsea as what sets her apart from her, predominantly male, contemporaries in late night TV is she doesn’t play it safe.”
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Also honored with a career achievement prize at the event was veteran actress Angela Lansbury, who also knows what it’s like to miss out on awards.
“I’ve been nominated for an Emmy 18 times and never won. It bothers the hell out of me,” said the “Murder She Wrote” and “Beauty and the Beast” star, clasping her Legend Award.
“But I’m one of the luckiest people in the world as since the age of 14 I’ve been doing what I wanted to do, which was act, and here I am at 91 and still going.”
Someone who is no stranger to awards – having won a Grammy, an Emmy and a Golden Globe – is songwriter Diane Warren. She took the third career achievement prize of the night, the Visionary Award, having written 32 top 10 hits including classics like “Because You Love Me” for Celine Dion, “Unbreak My Heart” for Toni Braxton and “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” for Aerosmith.
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“Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke presented Warren’s award after a fun-filled speech during which she said of her friend, “By the time she was 16, she’d already written 100 songs. When other girls were chasing boys and getting stoned, she was writing songs and getting stoned.”
Explaining the secret of her enduring success, Warren said, “I work very hard.”
As well as honoring those three extraordinary women, the 9th annual National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards, hosted by the Los Angeles Press Club, handed out prizes to America’s best entertainment journalists in print, TV, radio and online.
