In the Season 5 opener of “Hacks,” Jean Smart’s beleaguered character Deborah Vance is eager to reclaim her legacy — and comes up with the perfect way to do it. She wants to be an EGOT.
The idea of the EGOT — someone who wins all of the “Big Four” entertainment awards at some point in their career (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) — has been around for a while but became even more of a talking point as stars and producers began to move between TV, film, stage and music more effortlessly.
In the “Hacks” episode (also titled “EGOT”), Deborah notes that she’s already halfway there. She has a Daytime Emmy for hosting “Begongle,” a game show on the USA Network in 1992 where celebrities played Boggle on a constantly shaking floor. And she has a Tony Award as a producer: “In a post-coital haze, Eric Idle convinced me to put some money into ‘Spamalot’ [which actually won the Tony best musical in 2005].”
Of course, Deborah is already putting a bit of an asterisk in her EGOT journey, as there’s much debate over whether a Daytime (or News & Documentary or Sports) Emmy counts — or if EGOT should only include the more competitive Primetime Emmy space.
There are approximately 22 EGOT title holders at present time — but some got there through the Daytime Emmys (like Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Hudson and Alan Menken) and others landed there as one of dozens of producers on a Tony-winning play. This year, that was Steven Spielberg, whose Grammy win surprisingly earned him an EGOT — since it was previously undisclosed that he had won a Tony in 2022 as an uncredited producer on “A Strange Loop.”
