Chadwick Boseman wins best actor Golden Globe and his widow accepts in an emotional speech. - The New York Times

Chadwick Boseman won his first Golden Globe, and it was for a film he never got to see.

Boseman’s widow, Taylor Simone Ledward, accepted the award for best actor in a motion picture drama on behalf of the late actor, who died in August of colon cancer at age 43 — three months before “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” was released.

Scott praised Boseman’s potent performance as “definitive,” and other critics singled it out as the best of Boseman’s career.

The film, which Scott named a critic’s pick, was directed by George C.

The drama tells the story of Rainey, a pioneering blues singer of the title played by Viola Davis (who was nominated for best actress in a movie drama), and her battle to protect her gift — her voice — from exploitation by the white-owned record label.

The film is “a powerful and pungent reminder of the necessity of art, of its sometimes terrible costs and of the preciousness of the people, living and dead, with whom we share it,” Scott said in his review.

This was the first Golden Globe win for the actor, who got a relatively late start in his career before breaking through at age 35 with his first role in a studio film, playing Jackie Robinson in “42” (2013).

He would thank his team on set for this film: Deidra Dixon, Sian Richards, Craig Anthony and Andrew Carlone.

He would say something beautiful, something inspiring, something that would amplify that little voice inside of all of us that tells you you can, that tells you to keep going, that calls you back to what you are meant to be doing at this moment in history.