Friends and family were on hand to fete the 43-year-old, including pop star Ricky Martin, actress Anna Faris, and Felicity Huffman, who played alongside Longoria for eight seasons in the TV drama “Desperate Housewives”.

“I feel like I’m still a little girl from Corpus Christi, Texas, who had a really big dream and big hair”, Longoria said, to chuckles from the crowd.

“As a woman and as a Latina, I represent a lot of communities, and I want to tell all those communities that this isn’t my star, this is our star.”

Getting her start in soap operas “The Young and The Restless” and “General Hospital”, Longoria gained fame and a Golden Globe nomination, and won Screen Actors Guild awards for playing one of the four leading roles in “Desperate Housewives”.

Longoria’s third husband Jose Antonio Baston, with whom she is expecting her first child, also attended the event.

Monday’s ceremony coincided with the release of Longoria’s latest film “Overboard”, which co-stars Faris and Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez, and tells the story of a yacht owner who suffers amnesia after falling overboard. It is a remake of the 1987 film of the same name.