How Did Audrey Hepburn Earn Her EGOT?
Winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and a Tony, or EGOT, is one of the rarest feats in the entertainment industry. For icon Audrey Hepburn, joining the club was four decades in the making. The journey started when Roman Holiday made her a Hollywood sensation in the early ’50s.
Although Hepburn officially became an EGOT member after her death in 1993, she remains one of the headliners in an exclusive club that still only has 16 members in total — though more than a dozen are close.
Audrey Hepburn was more than a movie star
Anyone who went to see Gigi at Fulton Theatre on Broadway in 1951 ended up seeing a piece of history. Following in the legendary Mae West’s footsteps, who was discovered at Fulton Theatre reports The New York Times, Hepburn dazzled as the lead of the acclaimed romantic comedy.
While she also appeared in small TV roles around that time, she won a Theatre World Award for her Gigi performance — a star on the rise. Following a long Gigi tour, Hepburn was cast opposite Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. This movie would make her career.
Director William Wyler’s 1953 rom-com was a smash hit with both critics and audiences. Hepburn won an Oscar for playing a sheltered princess who escapes with an adventurous American (Peck). While Roman Holiday made the rounds in movie theaters, Hepburn became an overnight Hollywood sensation. And yet 1954 was arguably an even bigger year for Hepburn.
That year, she headlined another major hit, Sabrina, and also reached the pinnacle of theater for her starring role in the popular French play Ondine. The same month she won an Oscar for Roman Holiday, Hepburn accepted a Tony for Best Actress for Ondine. Then, she starred in a series of ’50s hits before headlining ’60s classics like Breakfast at Tiffany’s and My Fair Lady.
Audrey Hepburn joined an exclusive list of EGOT members after her death
Although Hepburn’s final screen role was Steven Spielberg’s 1989 drama Always, Hepburn remained an artist until her death in January 1993. As Mental Floss reports, Hepburn recorded an acclaimed children’s album as well as an infomercial shortly before she died. Hepburn posthumously earned an Emmy for the children’s album (Audrey Hepburn’s Enchanted Tales) and a Grammy for the infomercial (Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn).
With an Emmy and Grammy tacked onto her legacy, Hepburn officially joined the exclusive EGOT club in 1994. At the time, she was only the fifth artist to ever receive an award in all four categories, joining John Gielgud, Rita Moreno, Helen Hayes, and Richard Rodgers.
Since Hepburn joined the club, 11 others have made it as well. Whoopi Goldberg, Mel Brooks, and Mike Nichols all joined the EGOT list in the decade after Hepburn officially joined.
While it took Hepburn four decades to gather all four awards, songwriter Robert Lopez accomplished it in the shortest span. Lopez was only 39 when he won an Oscar, alongside his wife, for “Let it Go.” He already earned the other three awards in the previous decade.
Martin Scorsese, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Viola Davis are close to EGOT territory
More recently, the EGOT club has expanded to 16 members. In 2018, John Legend, Tim Rice, and Andrew Lloyd Webber snagged Emmys for their work on Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, joining the club simultaneously. Frequent Rice collaborator Alan Menken joined the club in 2020 with a Daytime Emmy. This capped a career as the maestro behind many of Disney’s biggest musical hits, reports TV Insider.
Meanwhile, several others are close to gaining entrance, including one of Hollywood’s best-known directors, Martin Scorsese. The famed director of Goodfellas and Raging Bull finally won his Best Director Oscar for The Departed in 2007. He already had a Grammy at the time for No Direction Home: Bob Dylan.
In 2012, Scorsese earned a Primetime Emmy for his work on George Harrison: Living in the Material World, leaving him only a Tony Award short of becoming an EGOT member. A series of other A-listers are close as well, including Viola Davis, Francis McDormand, Julie Andrews, and Al Pacino.
But if you had to bet on anyone pulling it off, it’s hard to go against Lin-Manuel Miranda. The Hamilton creator picked up an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special (Hamilton) in 2020 to give him three out of the four. This leaves him one Oscar away from EGOT status.
Miranda is knocking on the door there as well, with two Best Original Song nominations already (Moana, Encanto) and an excellent chance to be nominated for his musical work on the live-action version of The Little Mermaid.
