Meryl Streep and director Danny Boyle were among the big names who turned out to support a fundraiser Thursday benefiting a charity that helps refugees. According to its website, IRC ‘responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future.’ Pictures have been added to the photo gallery.

Meryl Streep and Steven Spielberg have rehearsed their red carpet appeal at yesterday’s screening of the HBO documentary “Spielberg”, about – you’ve guessed it, the visionary director’s career. Streep and Spielberg will share many more photo calls in December when their film “The Post” is being promoted. Additional coverage from Showbiz411: It was just your basic night at Alice Tully Hall for HBO and the premiere of Susan Lacy’s stunning “Spielberg” documentary. HBO welcomed a select crowd across the street for dinner at Lincoln Restaurant, where Spielberg and wife Kate Capshaw had the whole family– lots of kids, and lots of friends: Blythe Danner, her son Jake Paltrow, his wife photographer Taryn Simon, plus Meryl Streep, Tony Bennett, Mike Myers, Barry Levinson, Paul Haggis, Greta Gerwig, Danny Strong, plus HBO’s Richard Plepler, as well as actor Bob Balaban and writer wife Lynn Grossman, Gina Gershon, Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue, Bennett Miller, and Spielberg’s legendary publicist since “Close Encounters,” Marvin Levy, the dean of Hollywood flacks. “Spielberg” begins airing on HBO tomorrow night. You’ve never had such a good reason stay home on a Saturday night.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Meryl Streep will present her Doubt co-star Amy Adams with this year’s American Cinematheque Award. Jake Gyllenhaal, Tom Hanks, Chris Messina, Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart will also be on hand at the Nov. 10 event to toast the Arrival actress. The American Cinematheque Award ceremony will take place at the Beverly Hilton. Proceeds from the evening will go toward the year-round programs of the nonprofit American Cinematheque, which includes programming at the Egyptian Theatre and the Aero in Santa Monica. Adams will next be seen in Justice League Part One, reprising her role of Lois Lane, and is set to star in HBO’s Gillian Flynn adaptation Sharp Objects. The American Cinematheque Award is usually broadcast as well, although no date has been given. Streep and Adams are two-time co-stars, having shared the screen in “Doubt” and at least the film although no scenes in “Julie & Julia”. Many thanks to Glenn and Frank for the heads-up.

Meryl Streep has made a surprise visit yesterday at Michael Moore’s Broadway performance of “Michael Moore: The Terms of my Surrender”. Moore, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker behind Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, brings his unrivaled powers of provocation and satire to the stage for the first time in The Terms of My Surrender, a world premiere one-man play, which has been described as an “exhilarating, urgent show is a hysterical theatrical coup d’etat that takes the utter lunacy of our times and turns it into a subversive piece of theatre”. Pictures from the backstage visit have been added to the photo gallery.

Over the past few weeks, I have randomly posted new pictures to the photo gallery, whenever something came my way. There’s a little bit of everything, from some unseen old appearances pictures, to additional film stills and some wonderful editorial photography from the 1980s and 1990s. For a complete overview, have a look at the list below. If you’d like to be the first to know about new picture additions, bookmark the last updated albums in the photo gallery, or have a look at Simply Streep’s Twitter account, where new finds are regularly posted as well. Enjoy the new additions.

AFI has announced the first round of talent who will be attending the 45th American Film Institute Life Achievement Award, where Diane Keaton will be honored in a gala tribute. Naturally, Keaton will be in attendance, and as is tradition for the ceremony, many of her costars and friends will be on hand to fête the actress-director-writer-producer. Entertainment Weekly can exclusively reveal that Ellen DeGeneres, Morgan Freeman, Steve Martin, Meryl Streep, and Reese Witherspoon will be in attendance to celebrate Keaton’s career in Hollywood and beyond. Freeman, Martin, and Streep are all previous recipients of the award. Many more names are still to be announced, according to AFI. The gala will take place on Thursday, June 8 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. TNT and TCM will broadcast the event in a one-hour special on June 15 and July 31, respectively. TCM will air the special as part of a night of programming dedicated to the 71-year-old’s work. Many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.

Yesterday in New York, Meryl Streep presented the 2017 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award to composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim at the PEN America Literary Gala, at the American Museum of Natural History. Sondheim has delighted audiences worldwide for more than six decades with witty lyrics, contagious melodies, and unforgettable characters that comprise some of America’s most beloved and timeless musicals such as West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sunday in the Park with George, which just completed its Broadway revival starring Jake Gyllenhaal. He is also the winner of at least 60 individual and collaborative Tony Awards, eight Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Pictures can be found in the photo gallery and Meryl’s introduction can be watched below and in the video archive.

As previously announced, Meryl Streep was among the guests of the Academy of American Poets’ 15th Annual Poetry and the Creative Mind on Thursday, and the Literary Hub has a nice article on the evening and the poems that were read. The sweeping Alice Tully Hall was full, the lobby had been swarmed for almost an hour before, and tickets had sold out in about three minutes. The state of our world is precarious, and it’s hard not to feel uncertain or desperate; the poems chosen for the night seemed to speak precisely to that. As the final speaker of the evening, Meryl Streep said that she was thinking about what Uzo Aduba said about the first poem she ever loved; hers was the lullaby her mother used to sing to her. “It’s not on the program, but I think I have to sing it.” And she did. After the song, she read Gary Snyder’s “Mother Earth: Her Whales,” and then, to cheer us up, “Good Bones” by Maggie Smith. “Life is short and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,” a mother begins, before saying she will keep it from her children: I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful. Would it be too sentimental to say that a large room of poets, singing their childhood memories and pleas for resistance, reading poems that enriched and inspired and devastated them, felt like it had filled in the bones of Lincoln Center and New York and the world for just one evening? When Meryl Streep reads poetry to you, it’s hard to resist romance. Pictures from the evening have been added to the photo gallery.

On April 19, the Academy of American Poets will hold its annual Poetry & the Creative Mind celebration at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, hosted by Meryl Streep. The event celebrates poetry’s important place in our culture and its impact on the lives of readers, and features leading and legendary actors, dancers, artists, musicians, and public figures on one stage sharing their favorite poems. The always inspiring evening is a benefit, which raises funds to support the educational programs of the Academy of American Poets. Meryl Streep is a longtime supporter of the Academy of American Poets, having attended the Poetry & the Creative Mind seven times between 2004 and 2014. You can learn more about the academy and her previous appearances here. For tickets and more information about the April 19 event, please visit their official website. Many thanks to Frank for the heads-up.

The 89th Annual Academy Awards will go down in history for its shocking false announcement in the Best Picture category, which made one forget about the pointless Lagerfeld tabloid story (although Jimmy Kimmel couldn’t resist to ask, “nice dress. Is that an Ivanka?). Kimmel pulled no punches during his opening monologue, joking that the 20-time-nominee was getting a bit too much credit for her acting chops. “We’re here to honor the actors who seem great, but actually really aren’t. And of all the ‘great’ actors here in Hollywood, one in particular has stood the test of time for her many uninspiring and overrated performances,” Kimmel dead-panned. “From her mediocre early work in ‘The Deer Hunter’ and ‘Out of Africa,’ to her underwhelming performances in ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ and ‘Sophie’s Choice,’ Meryl Streep has phoned it for more than 50 films over the course of her lackluster career.” Kimmel finished things off by asking everyone else in the auditorium to show their appreciation for the actress. “This is Meryl’s 20th Oscar nomination,” he pointed out. “Made even more amazing considering the fact that she wasn’t even in a movie this year, we just wrote her name down out of habit. Everybody, please join me in giving Meryl Streep a totally undeserved round of applause.” The evening went as expected – until its very unexpected end – with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Meryl’s friend Viola Davis and Javier Bardem paying tribute to Meryl’s performance in “The Bridges of Madison County”, before joining her on stage to present the Best Cinematography category to Linus Sandgren for “La La Land”. Pictures from the (apparently very brief) arrivals and the show have been added to the photo gallery. Many thanks to Lindsey for her contributions. Enjoy, and goodbye to the 2017 awards season!