EGOTs on deck: Who will win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award next
James Earl Jones nearly joined the ranks of the elusive EGOTs now that he’s on deck to receive the Governors Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. What’s an EGOT you ask? When a star earns the entertainment industry’s awards grand slam, winning the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. It’s the ultimate lifetime achievement for any performer.
The 80-year-old actor has already won Emmys for “Gabriel’s Fire” and “Heat Wave,” a Grammy for “Great American Documents” and a Tony for “The Great White Hope” and “Fences.” He was nominated for an Oscar in 1971 for the film adaptation of “The Great White Hope” (he won a Tony for the same role in 1969) and despite his hefty body of work since then, Oscar hadn’t come calling until now. However, an artist must win the award to be an EGOT champ and unfortunately honorary awards do not count.
So far, only 10 stars have reached EGOT status, Whoopi Goldberg and Mel Brooks among them. But there is a handful of serious serious contenders who could pull it off, let’s see who else is close to completing their EGOT. (Anacleto Rapping / Los Angeles Times)
What she has: Emmy (“Mildred Pierce”), Oscar (“The Reader”) and Grammy (“Listen to the Storyteller,” her spoken-word album for children). What she needs: A Tony. Winslet tends to steer clear of the stage, preferring to star in movie adaptations of plays like “Carnage” or stage-friendly films like “Finding Neverland,” which will debut as a West End production in late 2012. However, the bright lights of Broadway may not be too far off now that the Brit is just one step away from EGOT. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
What he has: Grammy (“That’s What Friends Are For” and five others), Oscar (“The Lion King”) and Tony (“Aida”). What he needs: An Emmy. Things were looking up for John in 2011 with his hosting gig on “Saturday Night Live,” but he failed to nab even a nomination. Both Justin Timberlake and Betty White took home trophies in recent years for guesting on the show. (Seth Wenig / Associated Press)
What he has: Emmy (“Carol, Carl, Whoopi and Robin” and “ABC Presents: A Royal Gala”), Grammy (“Reality ... What a Concept” and four others) and Oscar (“Good Will Hunting”). What he needs: A Tony. Williams made his Broadway acting debut in 2011 (he had his own one-man show “Robin Williams: Live on Broadway” in 2002) as the lead in “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.” But the role as the voice of the tiger and narrator of the story wasn’t the Tony-winning role he’d been waiting for. (Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times)
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What she has: Emmy (“Sex and the City” and “Law and Order: SVU”), Grammy (“An Inconvenient Truth”) and Tony (“Rabbit Hole”). What she needs: An Oscar. Nixon needs to nab a juicy movie role if she hopes to take home an Academy Award. She tried with Oren Moverman‘s “Rampart” in 2011, but didn’t get a nod for the indie role. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
What he has: Emmy (“Angels in America” and “You Don’t Know Jack”), Oscar (“Scent of a Woman”) and Tony (“Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?” and “The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel”). What he needs: Who wouldn’t want to hear Al Pacino on a spoken-word album? Seriously. If the veteran actor really wants that Grammy, he might want to line up some audio work pronto. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)
What she has: Emmy (“Cher: The Farewell Tour”), Grammy (“Believe”) and Oscar (“Moonstruck”). What she needs: Cher made her Broadway debut in Robert Altman’s “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” way back in 1982 and even sang at the Tony Awards the same year. With plenty of Broadway-centric performances since, it is hard to believe Cher hasn’t taken home that Tony yet. Now, director Andy Fickman wants to bring Cher’s life story to the stage, which raises the question: Could another actress win the Tony playing Cher before the icon wins one herself? (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
What he has: Emmy (“Elizabeth I” and “The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century”), Oscar (“Reversal of Fortune”) and Tony (“The Real Thing”). What he needs: Irons likes to dabble in music -- remember his “Be Prepared” song on the “Lion King” movie soundtrack -- but it has never been his bread and butter. Ultimately, he will likely have better luck going the spoken-word route. (Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times)
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What he has: Emmy (“The Life and Death of Peter Sellers”), Oscar (“Shine”) and Tony (“Exit the King”). What he needs: He’s earned a triple crown in acting, but will he ever get that Grammy? Maybe not. He once joked that the acronym should really be GOTE, and so far getting his GOTE doesn’t seem to be on his agenda. (Phil Klein / Associated Press)
What she has: Emmy (“The Julie Andrews Hour” and “Broadway: The American Musical”), Grammy (“Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs and Lullabies”) and Oscar (“Mary Poppins”). What she needs: When it comes to the Tony Awards, Andrews isn’t afraid to stir up some controversy. The potential EGOT declined her Tony nomination in 1996 for “Victor/Victoria” after the rest of the production was snubbed. Since that incident, she has lost the use of her singing voice, although she has returned to the stage in London.
Pictured: Julie Andrews and then-husband Tony Walton in 1965.(John Malmin / Los Angeles Times)