By Billie Eder
US actress Viola Davis has become the 18th person to become an EGOT winner after picking up the Grammy Award for best audiobook, narration and storytelling recording for her memoir Finding Me.
Davis, 57, joins an exclusive club who have achieved the entertainment grand slam of winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award, a prestigious club that includes the likes of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Audrey Hepburn.
Viola Davis has become an EGOT after completing the set with her Grammy win on Monday morning AEDT.Credit: AP
“I wrote this book to honour the six-year-old Viola,” Davis said. “To honour her life, her joy, her trauma, everything. And, it has just been such a journey. I just EGOT!”
Davis’ win on Monday (AEDT) makes her the third black woman to achieve the EGOT win, after Whoopi Goldberg in 2002 and Jennifer Hudson in 2022. Davis won her first award in 2001, a Tony for her performance in Broadway play King Hedley II, and her second in 2010 for Fences.
Her Emmy came five years later in 2015 for the popular TV drama How to Get Away with Murder, when she became the first black woman to win the best actress category.
Her Oscar win came in 2017 for the film adaptation of Fences, in which she starred alongside Denzel Washington. Her nomination that year made her the most-nominated black actress in history for the prestigious acting award.
Viola Davis won her Emmy in 2015 for her performance in How to Get Away with Murder.Credit: FilmMagic
The term EGOT was coined by actor Philip Michael Thomas in 1984 when he was cast in the breakout role of Detective Ricardo Tubbs in Miami Vice. Speaking to the Associated Press, the actor said his plans for future success were EGOT within five years, a dream that actors, musicians and entertainers around the world now aspire to.
The first person to achieve EGOT status was American composer Richard Rodgers in 1962, followed by American actress Helen Hayes and Peurto Rican actress Rita Moreno in 1977.
The full list of official EGOT winners
- Viola Davis
- Jennifer Hudson
- Alan Menken
- John Legend
- Tim Rice
- Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Robert Lopez
- Scott Rudin
- Whoopi Goldberg
- Mike Nichols
- Mel Brooks
- Jonathan Tunick
- Marvin Hamlisch
- Audrey Hepburn
- John Gielgud
- Rita Moreno
- Helen Hayes
- Richard Rodgers
There are a number of performers who have received so-called “honorary” awards making them unofficial EGOT recipients because at least one of their awards was non-competitive.
They include Barbra Streisand who has won a Grammy, Emmy and Oscar, but was given a Special Tony Award in 1970, and Liza Minnelli who has won a Tony, Oscar and Emmy, but was presented a Grammy legend award in 1990.
A number of actors, musicians and entertainers are eyeing off the EGOT club, including Hamilton star Lin-Manuel Miranda who is an Oscar shy of achieving the honour, along with Australian Hugh Jackman who is similarly an Oscar win away from adding EGOT to his long-list of accomplishments.
Davis’ memoir Finding Me, for which she won her Grammy, details her life growing up on Rhode Island, New York City.
She describes the book as being for “anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love”.
Adding author to her long list of credentials, Davis said she hoped the book would inspire people to “light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you”.
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