Meryl Streep to receive honorary Berlin Film Festival Award

Feb 14, 2012, 10:27 GMT

Berlin - The Berlin Film Festival is to give Hollywood doyenne Meryl Streep an honorary award for her life work at a ceremony in Berlin on Tuesday.

The 62-years-old actress has been nominated 17 times for an Academy Award. So far she has won it twice - the first time in 1979 for her role in the family drama Kramer vs Kramer.

Her latest Oscar nomination is for the best actress award at next month's Academy Awards, where she is the favourite to win the prize for her role as the former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the movie The Iron Lady.

Streep will receive the Berlin Film Festival's honorary Golden Bear just two days after she was awarded a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) prize for her acclaimed performance of the former conservative leader who ruled Britain from 1975 to 1990.

Born in New Jersey, Streep has also notched up 14 BAFTA nominations in her acting career, which she launched in the 1970's.

Since then, she has played in more than 20 films, including Silkwood, Out of Africa, Ironweed, A Cry in the Dark, Mamma Mia and The Devil Wears Prada.

In 1982 she won her second Oscar for her role as a mother in a Nazi death camp in the film Sophie's Choice.