In Praise of the Near-EGOTs (Those Who Qualify Only If You Count Honorary Awards)
Barbra Streisand is one of the greatest stars in the history of show business. She’s a superstar, an icon and a legend. But is she an EGOT?
Technically, no. She has won five Emmys, eight Grammys and two Oscars, but she has yet to win a Tony Award in competition. But then, she has appeared in just two Broadway shows, I Can Get It for You Wholesale, in which she played a supporting role and stole the show with the comic lament, “Miss Marmelstein,” and Funny Girl, in which she played the lead role of Fanny Brice and became a household name (a status she has never relinquished). In April 1964, during the run of the show, she appeared on the cover of TIME, back when that was a true marker of stardom. (It was a couple of weeks before she turned 22.)
Streisand received Tony nominations for both shows. At the Tony Awards in April 1962, she lost to Phyllis Newman in Subways Are for Sleeping. (Readers of a certain age will remember Newman as a frequent guest on talk shows and game shows in the 1960s and 1970s.) At the Tonys in May 1964, Streisand lost to Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!. It’s easy to see why Channing won. The entertainer was a veteran star (she had made the cover of TIME in 1950) who had finally – at age 42 – landed her signature role. Plus, Dolly! was Broadway’s biggest hit of the 1960s. (It’s just a shame that two award-worthy performances had to go up against each other.)
By the time of the Tony Awards in April 1970, Streisand had won four Grammys, a Primetime Emmy and an Oscar, but had not received a shiny bauble from the Tonys. So, the Tonys decided to give Streisand an honorary Tony which they dubbed “Star of the Decade.”
Should that count as a full-fledged Tony? Most awards experts say no; that only awards won in competition should count toward EGOTs.
But it’s not as if the EGOT concept is without pitfalls. For one thing, all EGOT awards are not equally hard to get. There are far fewer categories at the Oscars (24 this year) and the Tonys (26) than there are at the Grammys (95) and the Primetime Emmys (a whopping 123 last year, spread across three nights). And there are also separate annual Emmy competitions covering Daytime, Sports, International, Children’s & Family, News & Documentary and Technology & Engineering. Should they all count for EGOT consideration? That’s a lot of Emmys.
In 2016, the Daytime Emmy Awards introduced a category for outstanding musical performance in a daytime program. Three of the first four winners were Broadway ensembles, which between them included five people who had already won Tony and Grammy awards for the shows they appeared in (and the accompanying cast albums). With their Daytime Emmy wins, they only needed Oscars to achieve EGOT status. This “shortcut” made it absurdly easy to pile up awards. To their credit, the Daytime Emmys dropped the category after the 2019 ceremony.
The Tonys have not yet tightened the rules governing the ridiculously large numbers of people who can win as producers of a winning show. Literally dozens of producers won Tonys for A Strange Loop. They included Jennifer Hudson, who, with that win, became an EGOT; future EGOT Steven Spielberg and “honorary” EGOT Frank Marshall. In all three cases, that is their only Tony win do date.
How is it fair to count those awards and then be strict about not counting honorary awards? That’s a very good question.
For now, we count only awards won in competition toward EGOTs. Twenty-two people have met this test. Legendary composer Richard Rodgers was the first to do so in 1962, when he won an Emmy for Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years.
Spielberg was the most recent EGOT earlier this year, when he won a Grammy for best music film for Music by John Williams, a documentary about his long-time go-to composer.
Here are six artists who could also be considered EGOTs, but only if you count special or honorary awards.
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Barbra Streisand
EGOT Awards: Five Emmys (four Primetime, one Daytime); Eight Grammys; Two Oscars
Missing Award: Tony, despite two nods for I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1962) and Funny Girl (1964). The Tonys gave her a Special Tony Award in 1970 as “Star of the Decade.”
Notes: Streisand holds a special distinction, having won an Emmy for her first TV special, two Grammys for her first studio album and an Oscar for her first film. If Streisand had won that Tony for I Can Get It for You Wholesale, she would have won at all four shows with her debut projects. (Damn you, Phyllis Newman! — just kidding.) Also, if she had won that Tony, she would have become an EGOT (upon winning the Oscar in 1969) at age 26, which would have made her the youngest person ever to accomplish the feat. (Among official EGOTs, that distinction is held by Robert Lopez, who was just a week past his 39th birthday when he sealed the deal.)
Streisand does hold this nifty distinction: She’s the only person in Oscar history to win for both acting (for Funny Girl) and songwriting (for composing “Evergreen” from A Star Is Born).
In addition to her competitive Grammy wins, Streisand has received two honorary awards from the Recording Academy – the Grammy Legend Award (1992) and a Lifetime Achievement Award (1995).
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Liza Minnelli
EGOT Awards: One Emmy (Primetime); One Oscar; Three Tonys
Missing Award: Grammy, despite two nods for best traditional pop vocal album for Gently (1997) and Liza at the Palace (2010). She received a Grammy Legend Award in 1990.
Notes: In addition to her competitive Tony wins, she received a special Tony in 1974 for “adding luster to the Broadway season.” (Well said. She adds luster to everything.) And how about her mother, all-time show-business legend Judy Garland? Her only EGOT-level awards won in competition are her two Grammys for Judy at Carnegie Hall. Together, Garland and Minnelli make an EGOT, and a magnificent one.
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Quincy Jones
EGOT Awards: One Emmy (Primetime), 28 Grammys; One Tony
Missing Award: Oscar, despite seven nominations – six in music categories and one as a producer of best picture nominee The Color Purple. Jones received two honorary Oscars: the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (1994) and an honorary Governor’s Award (2024) “for his artistic genius, relentless creativity and trailblazing legacy in film music.” The latter award was announced before his death and was presented posthumously to his children.
Notes: In addition to his near-record number of Grammys (only three people have won more), Jones also received two honorary awards from the Recording Academy – a trustees award in 1989 and a Grammy Legend Award in 1992. He died in 2024 at age 91.
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Harry Belafonte
EGOT Awards: One Emmy (Primetime), Two Grammys, One Tony
Missing Award: Oscar. He was never even nominated for a competitive Oscar. He received a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2014.
Notes: Belafonte, who had the first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 in 1956 (Belafonte), received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy in 2000. He died in 2023 at age 96. In 2025, as a tribute, the Recording Academy added Belafonte’s name to their Best Song for Social Change Award.
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James Earl Jones
EGOT Awards: Three Emmys (two Primetime, one Daytime); One Grammy; Two Tonys
Missing Award: Oscar, despite one nod for The Great White Hope in 1971. He received an honorary Governor’s Award in 2011.
Notes: In addition to his competitive Tony wins, he received a special Tony in 2017 for lifetime achievement in the theatre. Jones died in 2024 at age 93.
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Frank Marshall
EGOT Awards: One Emmy (Sports); Two Grammys; One Tony
Missing Award: Oscar, despite five nominations, all for best picture (Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Color Purple, The Sixth Sense, Seabiscuit, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). Marshall received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 2019.
Notes: Marshall won his Sports Emmy in 2023 in the category of outstanding long documentary for The Redeem Team. The film chronicled the 2008 U.S. men’s basketball team’s journey during the Beijing Summer Olympics.