For an actor, there’s no better recognition than winning an Academy Award or a Tony Award. These, along with the Emmy and Grammy Awards, form the exclusive EGOT club, a feat accomplished by only 18 people so far, from Richard Rodgers in 1962 to Viola Davis in 2023.
While several actors have won a Tony and an Oscar for their excellence on the stage and screen, only nine performers have received both awards for the same role. The following are six of the nine performers to have earned that distinction.
1.Viola Davis
The most recent performer to achieve EGOT status and earn an Oscar and Tony for the same role, Davis won both awards for her portrayal of Rose Maxson in Fences, an August Wilson 1950s-era play set in Pittsburgh that explores race relations and the Black experience in the United States. The play premiered on Broadway in 1987 with Mary Alice playing the role of Rose and James Earl Jones playing her husband, Troy, a former Negro Leagues baseball player now working as a garbage collector.
Davis and Denzel Washington played the lead roles in the 2010 Broadway revival, with Davis winning the Tony for Best Actress in a Play. She previously won Best Featured Actress in a Play for King Hedley II in 2001. Davis reprised the role of Rose in the 2016 film adaption of Fences and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Davis won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for How to Get Away with Murder in 2015 and completed the EGOT in 2023 by winning the Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording Grammy for Finding Me.
2. Shirley Booth
A comedic actor who passed away in 1992, Shirley Booth was a legendary Broadway star who also starred in the sitcom Hazel and appeared in films such as The Year Without a Santa Claus, The Glass Menagerie, and The Matchmaker. Before appearing in those projects, she portrayed the character of Lola, a struggling homemaker married to recovering alcoholic Doc, in William Inge’s Come Back, Little Sheba, which premiered on Broadway in 1950. Booth made her Broadway debut 25 years earlier alongside Humphrey Bogart in Hell’s Bells.
She won the Tony for Best Leading Actress in a Play for her performance as Lola in Come Back, Little Sheba. Two years later, she reprised the role in the film adaptation and won the Best Actress Oscar. She also won two Emmy Awards for Hazel.
3. Rex Harrison
Among the most beloved musicals in Broadway history, My Fair Lady, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, tells the story of Professor Henry Higgins attempting to transform Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle into a “proper” lady. My Fair Lady debuted on Broadway in 1956 and was revived for showings in 1976, 1981, 1993, and 2018. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1957, while Rex Harrison, who portrayed Higgins, received the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical.
Harrison portrayed Higgins several times in his career, including in the 1964 film adaptation of My Fair Lady, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He also portrayed Higgins in the 1981 Broadway revival.
4. Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner, an iconic Russian performer who emigrated to the US in 1940 and subsequently made his Broadway debut in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, has the unique distinction of winning a pair of Tony Awards and an Oscar for portraying the same character. Brynner first played King Mongkut, a Siamese monarch, in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I in 1952 and won the Tony for Best Featured Actor. He won the Best Actor Oscar in the film adaptation of The King and I in 1956.
Brynner is best known for his performance as the King of Siam, playing the legendary character nearly 5,000 times on stage. He received a Special Tony Award in 1985 for his commitment and dedication to the character.
5. Paul Scofield
Paul Scofield won the Tony for Best Actor in a Play and Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor who infamously refused to allow Henry VII to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon, in Robert Bolt’s historical drama A Man for All Seasons. Scofield won the Tony in 1962 and the Oscar for the film version in 1966. A Man for All Seasons also won the Tony for Best Play and Academy Award for Best Picture.
6. Joel Grey
Cabaret, a musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb, tells the story of writer Cliff Bradshaw’s experience in the Berlin jazz venue Kit Kat Club and is set in Nazi Germany during the rise of the Third Reich. Legendary Broadway actor Joel Grey, who portrayed the club’s host, won the Tony for Best Featured Actor in 1967 and the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the film version in 1972.
Grey, who received the Lifetime Achievement in Theatre Tony in 2023, also earned Best Leading Actor in a Musical Tony nominations for Goodtime Charley, The Grand Tour, and George M! He also received Emmy and Grammy nominations during his decorated career.