Liza Minelli at the 1973 Oscars, with her father Vincente Minnelli.Getty Images.
Liza Minnelli (noncompetitive) – February 21, 1990
Liza Minnelli was the first person to begin their EGOT journey with a Tony Award (best lead actress in a musical, Flora the Red Menace). In 1973, she won back-to-back at the Oscars and Emmys for Cabaret and Liza with a Z, respectively. Her Grammy came in 1990, with a Grammy Legend tribute award. She accepted the honor by performing a disco version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Losing My Mind” and said in her acceptance speech, “Mostly, I’d like to thank the people who buy the records because they made it all possible.”
John Gielgud – August 25, 1991
Sir John Gielgud was the first British EGOT winner, the first queer EGOT winner, and the only male EGOT to win an Academy Award for acting (best-supporting actor, Arthur). His 1980 spoken-word Grammy for Ages of Man—a collection of Shakespeare speeches—also earned him a special Tony when he performed it on the stage over two decades prior. Gielgud earned two competitive acting Tonys as well: a foreign company award for The Importance of Being Earnest in 1948, and best director of a drama for Big Fish, Little Fish in 1961. Gielgud became the oldest person to cross the EGOT finish line when he won his Emmy for miniseries Summer’s Lease at the age of 87.
Audrey Hepburn – March 1, 1994
“It’s too much,” Audrey Hepburn sheepishly said upon receiving her Oscar for Roman Holiday in 1954. But the awards wouldn’t stop regardless of her modesty: She won a Tony for Ondine three days later. Hepburn remained beloved through her final days, becoming the first and only posthumous EGOT winner. Both her Emmy (informational programming, Gardens of the World With Audrey Hepburn) and Grammy (spoken-word album for children, Audrey Hepburn’s Enchanted Tales) were awarded following her death.
Marvin Hamlisch – September 9, 1995
Were it not for those pesky Emmys, Marvin Hamlisch would have had a meteoric rise to EGOT status. At the Academy Awards in 1974, he took home three Oscars—one of only 14 people to earn so many in one ceremony—for music from The Way We Were and The Sting. At the next Grammys, he earned four awards, including best new artist (one of only two people on this list to win that award). In 1976, he won the Tony for his original score to Broadway juggernaut A Chorus Line. But his EGOT wasn’t earned until 1995, when Hamlish got two Emmys for his work on Barbra: The Concert, the HBO broadcast of Barbra Streisand’s first concerts in decades.
Jonathan Tunick – June 1, 1997
If you think you have to be a household name to dominate the most coveted awards, think again! Jonathan Tunick earned his EGOT for a decades-spanning career as an orchestrator, music director, and composer, crossing the EGOT finish line in 1997 by winning a best-orchestrations Tony for the musical Titanic. Previously, he earned a 1978 Oscar for score adaptation (a now defunct category) for A Little Night Music. His Emmy arrived in 1982, for music directing Night of 100 Stars, and his Grammy in 1989, for his instrumental arrangement of Cleo Laine’s version of “No One is Alone.” He recently won his second orchestrations Tony for the revival of Merrily We Roll Along.
Mel Brooks – June 3, 2001
Mel Brooks is one of the few to begin their EGOT with an Emmy, earning a writing win for a variety show in 1967. His Oscar came for the original screenplay of The Producers, making Brooks the only person on this list to win an Oscar for screenwriting. A guest-starring run on Mad About You kicked off a late-career awards run, starting in 1997. Brooks won three consecutive Emmys for the series, a comedy album Grammy in 1999, and a trio of 2001 Tonys for the stage adaptation of The Producers. With his 2023 honorary Oscar, Brooks became only the second person to win a double EGOT, with at least two wins for each of the awards.
Mike Nichols – November 4, 2001
Though Mike Nichols won his Grammy for comedy performance alongside Elaine May in 1962, he is the only person among the EGOT winners to have been awarded for directing—he got an Oscar for The Graduate, and his first of nine Tonys for directing Barefoot in the Park. In 2001, he earned his EGOT status with multiple Emmys for HBO’s Wit. At Nichols’s AFI Lifetime Achievement in 2010, presenter Julia Roberts remarked on his EGOT status—at a time when there were less than half of the EGOT winners there are today.
Whoopi Goldberg – June 2, 2002
Like Nichols and Brooks, Whoopi Goldberg earned the “G” in her EGOT for a comedy recording, and hers was for the recording of her one-person Broadway show in 1986. After winning the best-supporting-actress Academy Award for her performance in Ghost and a special Emmy in 1997 for the Comic Relief benefit specials, her EGOT story was brought full circle with a Tony—not for reviving her solo act, but for producing the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. Goldberg is the first Black EGOT winner.
James Earl Jones (noncompetitive) – November 12, 2011
James Earl Jones began his EGOT trajectory with a Tony for lead actor in The Great White Hope; he was nominated for an Oscar for recreating the role onscreen but didn’t win. Like Hayes, his Grammy came in the spoken-word category: Jones won for Great American Documents. (Surely there has never been another voice in human existence we would rather hear reading the Constitution than his.) In 1991, he won a lead-actor-in-a-drama Emmy for one-season-wonder Gabriel’s Fire, making him the only male performer on this list with an acting Emmy that wasn’t for a guest or miniseries role. Jones’s honorary Oscar in 2011 made him the first person to complete their EGOT with an Oscar.
Scott Rudin – February 12, 2012
Even the industry’s most notorious figures can achieve a spot in the Hall of Fame of entertainment, like producer Scott Rudin—who first earned an Emmy for the children’s program He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin’. He became an EGOT thanks to the Grammy won by the cast recording for the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, after a best picture Oscar win for No Country for Old Men and numerous Tony wins that began with a best-musical victory in 1994 for Passion. After Rudin’s history of alleged physical and verbal abuse was exposed in 2021, and the Broadway community called for Rudin to exit his producing duties for ongoing and incoming productions, he released a statement saying, “After a period of reflection, I’ve made the decision to step back from active participation on our Broadway productions, effective immediately.”
Robert Lopez – March 2, 2014
While almost all EGOT winners have additional prize wins to their credit, composer Robert Lopez is the only double EGOT winner ever for entirely competitive categories—meaning he has won each of the EGOT prizes (at least) twice. He is also the only Asian and Filipino EGOT winner. His awards run began in 2004, when he won a Tony for his original score for Avenue Q. In 2008, he won a daytime Emmy for music composition for Wonder Pets, and in 2012, won a Grammy for best-musical-theater album for The Book of Mormon. With further songwriting accolades including Frozen, Coco, and “Agatha All Along,” Lopez earned his first EGOT when he got the best-original-song Oscar for “Let It Go” a week after his 39th birthday, which made him the youngest EGOT award winner ever.
Harry Belafonte (noncompetitive) – November 8, 2014
The legend and activist earned three-quarters of his EGOT in the span of a decade, starting with a Tony for distinguished performance in John Murray Anderson’s Almanac in 1954 (the same ceremony Audrey Hepburn was awarded), a variety-performance Emmy for The Revlon Revue in 1960, and a best-folk-performance Grammy in 1961 for his album Swing Dat Hammer. Like James Earl Jones, Belafonte joined the EGOT club with a tribute Oscar. In the moving acceptance speech for his Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, Belafonte mused about the potential for Hollywood to create societal change, saying, “Perhaps we as artists and as visionaries, for what’s better in the human heart and the human soul, could influence citizens everywhere in the world to see the better side of who and what we are as a species.”
