Former US president Barack Obama won an Emmy, a prestigious US award that gives prizes for television content annually, for his narration of the Netflix nature documentary, Our Great National Parks on Saturday (September 3), making him achieve half an ‘EGOT’ status. EGOT is the acronym for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony – arguably the highest honours in popular performing arts given in America, in the fields of TV, music, acting and theatre, respectively. Those who have won at least one award from each category are deemed as having achieved EGOT status and are often regarded as some of the greatest artists in the West. Obama has previously won a Grammy for the audiobooks of his memoirs. What does it mean to have EGOT status? First, the EGOT can be achieved in a person’s entire career and there is no time frame for it. Second, a genuine EGOT means a competitive category award, such as Best Actor or Album of Year, and not awards that are there to honour certain individuals, like a career achievement award. There are some fascinating statistics here: only two people ever have received an EGOT along with the Pulitzer prize, awarded for work in newspapers, magazines, online journalism, literature, and musical composition – US composers Richard Rodgers and Marvin Hamlisch. Only one person has ever achieved double EGOT status, American songwriter Robert Lopez, who was also the youngest-ever recipient at the age of 39. Similar concepts are popular in tennis, related to the four Grand Slams or the biggest tournaments that happen in a year, in which tennis is played on a range of surfaces, like grass (Wimbledon) and clay (French Open). Winning a career grand slam means winning all four tournaments at least once in a career. A calendar slam means winning all four in a single year, while a career golden slam means winning a gold Olympics medal in your career as well. Steffi Graf, Andre Agassi, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams are the only golden slam winners. Who are some famous EGOTs? Some popular EGOTs are Audrey Hepburn, playwright Andrew Lloyd Webber and musician John Legend. Other famous personalities who are close to an EGOT are director Martin Scorcese, actress Kate Winslet, The Beatles’ Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, who are all missing a Tony Award. British singer Adele also became a 3/4 EGOT with her Emmy win on Sunday, for a TV special telecast of her concert. The exclusivity of EGOTs shows how difficult it is to achieve this feat. The Oscars were established the earliest, in 1929, while the Grammys began in 1959 – the latest of the four. To date, only 17 people have achieved EGOT status, the latest being Jennifer Hudson in June this year. Where did the aspiration for EGOT come from? It’s a fairly recent term. Actor Philip Michael Thomas, best known for starring in the 80s TV show Miami Vice, once expressed the desire to win all of the four awards, but he was never nominated for any of them. It was even said that Thomas had the letters engraved on a gold pendant, which he wore around his neck. The term became popular thanks to an episode of the show 30 Rock, in which an actor hears of the concept and becomes determined to achieve the status. According to The Atlantic, this led to a huge rise in the popularity of the term. However, EGOT does not imply domination of all four fields related to the awards. For instance, Adele won an Emmy, a TV and acting-centric award, for her concert telecast and an Oscar, a film-centric award, for her song ‘Skyfall’ that was written for the James Bond movie of the same name. So, while EGOT undoubtedly signals a high level of skill and talent, it does not always mean an equal level of competence across all performance arts.
