Streep won for dramatic actress as Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady,’’ her eight win at the Globes.

Williams won for actress in a musical or comedy as Marilyn Monroe in “My Week with Marilyn,’’ 52 years after Monroe’s win for the same prize at the Globes. Dujardin won for musical or comedy actor for the silent film “The Artist.’’

The supporting-acting Globes went to Plummer as an elderly widower who comes out as gay in the father-son drama “Beginners’’ and Spencer as a brassy housekeeper joining other black maids to share stories about life with their white employers in the 1960s Deep South tale “The Help.’’

Scorsese won for the Paris adventure “Hugo.’’ It was the third directing Globe in the last 10 years for Scorsese, who previously won for “Gangs of New York’’ and “The Departed’’ and received the show’s Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement two years ago.

He won over a field of contenders that included Michel Hazanavicius, who had been considered by many in Hollywood as a favorite for his black-and-white silent film “The Artist.’’

Williams offered thanks for giving her the same award Monroe once won and joked that her young daughter put up with bedtime stories for six months spoken in Monroe’s voice.

“I consider myself a mother first and an actress second, so the person I most want to thank is my daughter, my little girl, whose bravery and exuberance is the example I take with me in my work and my life,’’ Williams said.

Dujardin became the first star in a silent film to earn a major Hollywood prize since the early days of film. He won as a silent-era star whose career unravels amid the rise of talking pictures in the late 1920s.

It’s a breakout role in Hollywood for Dujardin, a star back home in France but little known to U.S. audiences previously. His French credits include “The Artist’’ creator Michel Hazanavicius’ spy spoofs “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies’’ and “OSS 117: Lost in Rio.’’

“The Artist,’’ which led the Globes with six nominations, also won the musical-score prize for composer Ludovic Bource but lost out on three other awards, including the screenplay prize for Michel Hazanavicius.

Woody Allen won the screenplay honor for his romantic fantasy “Midnight in Paris,’’ the filmmaker’s biggest hit in decades. Never a fan of movie awards, Allen was a no-show at the Globes, where he previously won the screenplay honor for 1985’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo.”

The wins boost Williams, Spencer and Plummer’s prospects for slots at next month’s Academy Awards, whose nominations come out Jan. 24.

The Oscars are an honor for which Monroe herself never was nominated, though she was a two-time nominee at the Globes and won for best actress in a musical or comedy for 1959’s “Some Like It Hot.’’

In “My Week with Marilyn,’’ Williams plays Monroe as an insecure performer struggling to establish herself as a genuine actress rather than a movie star sexpot just a couple of years before “Some Like It Hot.’’ The film chronicles Monroe’s contentious time shooting the 1957 romance “The Prince and the Showgirl’’ alongside exasperated director and co-star Laurence Olivier.

Like Monroe, Oscar consideration has been elusive for the 82-year-old Plummer, who has been nominated for Hollywood’s top honor only once in his 60-year career ― two years ago, for the Leo Tolstoy drama “The Last Station.’’

“I must praise my distinguished competitors, who whom I have the greatest admiration and to whom I apologize most profusely,’’ said Plummer, who added warm regards to “Beginners’’ star and Scottish actor Ewan McGregor. “I want to salute my partner, Ewan, that wily Scot, Ewan `My Heart’s in the Highlands’ McGregor, that scene-stealing swine from the outer Hebrides.’’

Plummer is regarded as one of the finest Shakespearean stage actors of the last half century. His film roles range from Austrian widower Captain von Trapp in “The Sound of Music’’ and Tolstoy in “The Last Station’’ to newsman Mike Wallace in “The Insider’’ and a treacherous Klingon general in “Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country.’’ He also co-starred in the current thriller “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.’’
 

(AP)