How the Golden Globes went from laughing stock to power player

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association steadily gained influence over the years until scrutiny of its practices and its lack of diversity left it without an awards show next year.

Lady Gaga at the 2019 Golden Globes, which over the years, and despite the criticism, has become a premier event in the Hollywood awards season. AP

Nicole Sperling and Brooks Barnes

May 13, 2021 – 7.08am

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The Golden Globes were created by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) in 1944 and quickly developed a reputation as unserious and slippery.

In the late 1960s, the US Federal Communications Commission got the Globes booted from the airwaves, saying it “misled the public as to how the winners were determined.” CBS dropped it in 1982 after Pia Zadora was named “new star of the year,” a plaudit essentially paid for by her billionaire husband, Meshulam Riklis, who flew HFPA members to Las Vegas and wined and dined them at his Riviera hotel and casino.