Meryl Streep's Oscar Night: Presenter and Winner

Meryl Streep's relationship with the Academy Awards is unique: with 17 nominations at the time, more than any other performer in Oscar history, she was simultaneously the ceremony's most honored subject and, on February 26, 2012, both one of its presenters and its biggest winner.

At the 84th Academy Awards — held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood and hosted by Billy Crystal — Streep presented the Governors Award segment, introducing honorary Oscar recipients James Earl Jones, Dick Smith, and Oprah Winfrey. And later in the evening, presented by the previous year's Best Actor winner Colin Firth, she collected the Best Actress award for her transformation into Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.

It was her third win — after Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Sophie's Choice (1982) — and her first in 30 years, three decades of nominations in between. The evening's biggest contest had been the two-way race between Streep and Viola Davis (The Help), and when Firth read her name, the standing ovation was the evening's longest.

Her acceptance speech disarmed the "Streep fatigue" narrative before it could begin: "When they called my name, I had this feeling I could hear half of America going, 'Oh no! Oh, c'mon why? Her? Again?'" She thanked her husband Don Gummer first — deliberately, she said, because the music plays you off if you leave him for last — then longtime collaborator Roy Helland, the hairstylist and makeup artist who had worked with her since her first New York play 37 years earlier. "I really understand I'll never be up here again," she said, and thanked "all my colleagues, all my friends" for "this inexplicably wonderful career."

The Artist took Best Picture that night, Jean Dujardin won Best Actor, Octavia Spencer won Supporting Actress, and at 82 Christopher Plummer became the oldest acting winner ever for Beginners. But the evening belonged to Streep: presenter, nominee, and — thirty years after Sophie Zawistowska — winner.

Sources

• Meryl Streep wins third Oscar for Iron Lady — Channel 4 News
• Meryl Streep Wins Third Academy Award — uInterview