{"id":456501,"date":"2026-02-06T00:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T00:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/456501\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T00:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T00:04:14","slug":"has-the-egot-lost-the-plot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/456501\/","title":{"rendered":"Has the EGOT Lost the Plot?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Getty Images\/NBC\/Ringer illustration\"\"<\/a>By Ben Lindbergh<\/a>Feb. 5, 3:41 pm UTC \u2022 11 min<\/p>\n

In Season 5, Episode 14 of 30 Rock, Kenneth the Page (Jack McBrayer) lists the rewards Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) will reap from completing his quest for an EGOT: an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. The Empire State Building will be lit in the color of his choosing. SeaWorld will let him borrow a killer whale for spring break. And Steven Spielberg wants him to star in his next movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cKate Capshaw\u2019s husband?\u201d Jordan exclaims.<\/p>\n

Jordan and Kate Capshaw\u2019s husband now have something in common: Spielberg has EGOTed, too.<\/p>\n

Spielberg completed his EGOT on Sunday at the Grammys, where he collected his \u201cG\u201d for producing the 2024 documentary Music by John Williams, which won Best Music Film<\/a>. Spielberg has three Oscars (for directing Schindler\u2019s List and Saving Private Ryan) and four Primetime Emmys (for executive producing Band of Brothers, Taken, The Pacific, and, of course, the classic A Pinky and the Brain Christmas<\/a>), so the \u201cO\u201d and \u201cE\u201d were well in hand. What wasn\u2019t widely known is that the 79-year-old Hollywood legend had the \u201cT,\u201d too. Unbeknownst to almost everyone, Spielberg secured a Tony for producing A Strange Loop, which won Best Musical at the Tony Awards in 2022.<\/p>\n

When<\/a> word<\/a> went<\/a> out<\/a> in the trade publications that Spielberg had EGOTed, confusion ensued in some quarters of the internet: \u2019E got an EGOT? Granted, the Grammy win wasn\u2019t exactly emblematic of the EGOT ideal of multifaceted creative expression: Spielberg, a movie maker, won the \u201cmusic\u201d award for helping make a movie. Plus, he was one of almost a dozen<\/a> producers of the documentary, which wouldn\u2019t have been eligible for the award if not for a rule change<\/a> at the 2024 Grammys that removed the previous requirement that at least 51 percent of any film under consideration consist of \u201cperformance-based material.\u201d But hey, who has done more to commission and popularize music by John Williams than Spielberg, the composer\u2019s creative partner on 30<\/a> films? Thus, few would begrudge him his Grammy. But a Tony? How and when did he check off that box on his EGOT bingo card?<\/p>\n

No formal body or committee bestows or certifies EGOT wins, so Wikipedia is as authoritative an arbiter as any. And initially, Wikipedians were divided on the matter of the mysterious Tony: Since Sunday\u2019s ceremony, the entry<\/a> for \u201cEGOT\u201d has received dozens<\/a> of edits, most of them Spielberg-related. This encyclopedic dust-up isn\u2019t one of Wikipedia\u2019s wildest edit wars<\/a>, but it has resulted in Spielberg being listed and delisted multiple times as the 22nd competitive EGOT awardee.<\/p>\n

An extensive back-and-forth<\/a> on the \u201cTalk\u201d page for \u201cEGOT\u201d\u2014along with similar exchanges among dubious commenters on many<\/a> a<\/a> Reddit<\/a> post<\/a>\u2014lays out the causes for skepticism. Spielberg\u2019s Tony win wasn\u2019t publicly reported prior to his Grammy win, which seems strange considering his fame. Although Spielberg is listed as a producer on A Strange Loop\u2019s Internet Broadway Database page<\/a>, he wasn\u2019t added to it until June 2024, and he isn\u2019t credited<\/a> for producing the play on the page for 2022 nominations on the Tony Awards website. Nor was he listed<\/a> in the Playbill for the award-winning production of A Strange Loop at the Lyceum Theatre, as he<\/a> was<\/a> for two other Tony-nominated musicals he subsequently produced, 2024\u2019s Water for Elephants and Death Becomes Her. The Tony rules and regulations state<\/a>, \u201cThe producers eligible for nomination for a Tony Award shall include those producers listed above the title in the opening night program for a production together with any other producers as may be approved by the Tony Awards Administration Committee consistent with its usual policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

One unnamed Wikipedia editor, who evidently felt strongly enough about Spielberg\u2019s Tony to create an account for the sole purpose<\/a> of policing the director\u2019s presence on the EGOT entry, wrote, \u201cit just feels like they’re trying to credit him with a Tony to make him an EGOT winner after the Grammy win.\u201d Was Spielberg\u2019s supposed Tony one more manifestation of a societal assault on truth<\/a>? Most editors weren\u2019t so conspiracy-minded. They just wanted to ensure that Spielberg\u2019s inclusion cleared the site\u2019s standard for proof, and probe<\/a> what his previously unsuspected Tony might signify for the page\u2019s accuracy. After all, in the wake of an announcement that threw EGOT talliers for a (strange) loop, who\u2019s to say which other EGO winners might have a secret T to their name? \u201cI don\u2019t oppose it, I just don\u2019t understand it!,\u201d editor eeveeman said about Spielberg\u2019s EGOT designation. Multiple editors expressed a desire for some source aside from a Variety report<\/a> that appeared to provide the only corroboration from the Tonys that Spielberg had actually won one.<\/p>\n

Well, here\u2019s a second source: Reached by The Ringer, reps for Spielberg and for the Tonys confirmed his win for A Strange Loop. Spielberg\u2019s rep referenced a photo of the award on Spielberg\u2019s mantle; the Tony reps didn\u2019t respond to a request for further information about Spielberg\u2019s eligibility, but they told Variety that \u201che did receive a statuette as part of the production\u2019s credited producer group, listed under the \u2018et al\u2019 designation.\u201d This was enough for eeveeman, who ultimately concluded, \u201cLots of discussion elsewhere on the merits of the various awards and winning for being a producer but its [sic] not really for us to debate the minutiae\u2014seems he definitely has one of each, so an EGOT winner he is!\u201d<\/p>\n

So yes, Spielberg definitely did win a Tony, and, by extension, complete the EGOT. But the minutiae are still debatable. The question isn\u2019t whether Spielberg EGOTed; it\u2019s what his win says about the process and prestige of obtaining the EGOT title. Has the EGOT lost the plot?<\/p>\n

Although the lead paragraph of Spielberg\u2019s Wikipedia entry<\/a> now culminates in the sentence, \u201cHe is one of 22 people to achieve EGOT status,\u201d the stakes for Spielberg himself seem low. The popular appeal, critical acclaim, and creative legacy of the highest-grossing<\/a> director of all time\u2014who, in addition to making the movies that earned him Academy awards, has helmed beloved blockbusters Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the original Indiana Jones trilogy, and Jurassic Park\u2014hardly hinge on whether he holds a distinction that\u2019s even more made up than most artistic honors. The man has a Presidential Medal of Freedom, a National Medal of Arts, and a Kennedy Center Honor from when it was still called<\/a> the Kennedy Center, not to mention a Forbes post<\/a> that says he\u2019s the world\u2019s wealthiest celebrity.<\/p>\n

At first glance, the ramifications for the EGOT as a status symbol may seem marginal also. Spielberg\u2019s standing as an honoree does nothing to diminish the collective reputation of the EGOT elite; it\u2019s not as if some unaccomplished charlatan qualified for the club on a technicality. By any measure, Spielberg is an undisputed titan in his field.<\/p>\n

But EGOTs are (or, perhaps, seem like they should be) reserved for titans of multiple fields. An EGOT isn\u2019t just a marker of greatness, but of range. And in the popular imagination\u2014the only place the EGOT exists\u2014it has to be hard-earned. As EGOT winner Whoopi Goldberg tells Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock, \u201cYou cannot fake your way to an EGOT, fool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Jordan does; upon learning about EGOTing, he immediately dubs it \u201ca life goal\u201d and starts scheming to win with help from entourage members Dot Com and Grizz, who notice that composers seem overrepresented among EGOT getters. As Kenneth concludes, \u201cMr. Jordan, you need to write one great song, a song whose success will get it featured on a TV show, and then a movie based on that TV show. And then a Broadway play based on that movie.\u201d That\u2019s not quite how he does it\u2014in fact, the nature of his Emmy and Grammy wins is never totally clear\u2014but he definitely doesn\u2019t follow Goldberg\u2019s advice that \u201cit\u2019s gotta come from the heart, and then the awards will follow.\u201d Jordan\u2019s Tony comes from repeatedly reading the phonebook in a one-man show, which is inexplicably hailed as award-worthy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a 2019 oral history<\/a> published by The Ringer documents, the EGOT\u2014a concept coined<\/a> by Miami Vice actor Philip Michael Thomas in 1984\u2014didn\u2019t enter the cultural lexicon until<\/a> a Season 4 episode of 30 Rock revived it in December 2009.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jordan\u2019s EGOT arc continued for more than a year, well into the sitcom\u2019s fifth season. And as it raised awareness of the EGOT as an artistic aspiration, it may also have cemented the conception of the exploit as something that could conceivably be, well, exploited. It seems suggestive that of those 22 EGOT holders\u2014the first of whom, Richard Rodgers, unwittingly inaugurated the feat in 1962\u201412 have been anointed since 2012, which was two years after Jordan\u2019s EGOT came to fictional fruition.<\/p>\n

As 30 Rock director and producer Dan Scardino said in that 2019 piece, \u201cNow the EGOT has become suddenly a goal that people want to pursue.\u201d Take Viola Davis, who EGOTed in 2023. \u201cI don\u2019t sing, I mean I really don\u2019t sing,\u201d the actress said<\/a> in 2017, when she was a Grammy short of an EGOT. \u201cWell, maybe I\u2019ll do a spoken word thing with Kanye West or something like that!\u201d Instead, she went on to win for narrating the audiobook of her 2022 memoir Finding Me, which prompted her to proclaim<\/a> in her acceptance speech, \u201cI just EGOT!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scardino continued, \u201cIf wanting to be an EGOT inspires people to try and do their best work, then I suppose it\u2019s a good thing.\u201d But what if it inspires people to do whatever work\u2014or cut whichever corner\u2014could engineer an EGOT? In that case, the EGOT could become the latest illustration of Goodhart\u2019s law<\/a>, which is sometimes expressed as, \u201cWhen a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.\u201d In other words, once an accomplishment becomes so coveted that people start trying to achieve it, it tends to lose the value that made it desirable in the first place. It\u2019s corrupted by its own cachet.<\/p>\n

As The New York Times noted<\/a> on Sunday, \u201cThe not-so-quiet secret is that when you\u2019re close to an EGOT, it is possible to game the system.\u201d EGOTer Andrew Lloyd Webber has admitted as much; in 2024, he recalled<\/a> his own response when another musician asked him how to add a Tony to his Grammys and Emmys: \u201cI said, \u2018Well, one way you could do that is become a producer, put some money into a few shows. Every show seems to have 20 producers these days.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Twenty might be a conservative estimate. In January 2023, David Gordon, editor-in-chief of TheaterMania, predicted<\/a> that \u201ccelebrities will try to get closer to an EGOT by producing Broadway shows.\u201d As Gordon acknowledged, he wasn\u2019t going out on a limb: This had happened a few times already (including Whoopi\u2019s win in 2002 for producing Thoroughly Modern Millie). Later in 2023, TheaterMania\u2019s chief critic, Zachary Stewart, decried the practice<\/a> at greater length, writing, \u201cIt\u2019s an open secret that, for many Broadway shows, producer credits are for sale. \u2026 It is an incontrovertible truth that you can be billed as a \u2018producer\u2019 on a Broadway show without ever offering any creative input\u2014and most lead producers prefer that you don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2014, Joey Parnes, the lead producer of that year\u2019s Tony winner for Best Musical, A Gentleman\u2019s Guide to Love and Murder, admitted<\/a> to selling above-the-title production slots to people who invested as little as $35,000 in the play. (As of 2013<\/a>, it cost an extra $2,500 for the graduate of a Tony mill<\/a> to order an actual trophy; a nonexistent EGOT trophy can\u2019t be bought.) \u201cWith the exploding population of producers on Broadway, it\u2019s never been easier to win a Tony Award and get 25 percent of the way to EGOT,\u201d Stewart said. Or, perhaps, 100 percent of the way, if you\u2019ve already taken care of the other 75 percent. Stewart concluded, \u201cIn the future, when we speak of EGOT recipients, some of the names on that ever-expanding roster ought to have an asterisk explaining how they got their Tonys.\u201d<\/p>\n

The play that prompted Stewart\u2019s diatribe was none other than A Strange Loop, which, as he observed, listed several celebrities among its 40-plus producers\u2014a total that omitted the then-unspecified Spielberg. \u201cJust how many producers did A Strange Loop have to be the reason that *5* people on this page are listed as EGOT winners?\u201d asked Wikipedia editor FOARP on the \u201cEGOT\u201d Talk page, alluding to Spielberg, Jennifer Hudson (who EGOTed for producing the play), producer Frank Marshall (one of six<\/a> Wikipedia-classified \u201cnon-competitive EGOT awardees\u201d), and composers Justin Paul and Benj Pasek. Answer: a lot. It\u2019s not that producing can\u2019t be a creative endeavor that\u2019s worthy of awards and EGOT stature. It\u2019s that it\u2019s sometimes difficult to tell how productive \u201cproducers\u201d really are.<\/p>\n

Via email, Stewart said this week that Spielberg\u2019s award \u201cdoes seem pretty flimsy.\u201d Stewart went on:<\/p>\n

[blockquote]Honestly, this is why I find all awards to be bullshit. So much of the criteria is arbitrary and malleable, depending on who will show up to your party. It gets even more suspect when these events are televised and the producers have an interest in showing CBS that they can put big names and faces in front of the cameras.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In our allegedly meritocratic republic, is the EGOT just a rebranded version of the Order of the Golden Fleece<\/a>\u2014bestowed on the great and the good of the empire, even as tectonic technological shifts (social media, film studios in our pockets) betray these old traditions as hopelessly pass\u00e9?[\/blockquote]<\/p>\n

It would probably be silly to get exercised about something as inherently contrived as this fairly recent institution, which EGOTer Alan Menken described to The Times as \u201ca random assortment of honors.\u201d It\u2019s not really random, but it is arbitrary. For one thing, it excludes some esteemed awards: Some people have proposed a \u201cPEGOT<\/a>,\u201d but not everyone agrees on whether the \u201cP\u201d should be the Peabody or the Pulitzer. For another, it lumps together awards of varying rarity: There are 96 competitive Grammy Award categories, compared to only 24 competitive Oscar categories. It also draws distinctions between competitive and non-competitive awards, and between Primetime Emmys and Daytime Emmys. And it doesn\u2019t truly test versatility, because artists often win multiple kinds of qualifying hardware in essentially the same discipline.<\/p>\n

Awards offer only as much value as cultural tastemakers and consumers ascribe to them. Maybe the EGOT\u2014the artificial, unofficial, whimsical creation of an actor who was shut out in the EGOT categories, and a concept that didn\u2019t catch on until a satirical comedy turned it into a bit\u2014was always overrated. Although the EGOT roster boasts a lot of luminaries, not all of its members sport Spielbergian CVs. Most household names aren\u2019t EGOTers, and not all EGOTers are household names. Even those who are don\u2019t always gain admission thanks to their most memorable projects: In 2024, Elton John EGOTed when his livestreamed special Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium won an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special (Live).On 30 Rock, Jordan properly pegs the EGOT as soon as it\u2019s explained to him: \u201cThat\u2019s a good goal for a talented crazy person,\u201d he says. If it\u2019s true that all artists, like Jordan, are a little mad<\/a>, then the EGOT may be with us for a while\u2014unless it loses its luster as it starts to seem ill-(e)gotten.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ben Lindbergh<\/p>\n

<\/a>Ben is a writer, podcaster, and editor who covers culture and sports. He hosts \u2018Effectively Wild\u2019 at FanGraphs and previously wrote for FiveThirtyEight and Grantland, served as editor-in-chief of Baseball Prospectus, and authored \u2018The MVP Machine\u2019 and \u2018The Only Rule Is It Has to Work.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images\/NBC\/Ringer illustrationBy Ben LindberghFeb. 5, 3:41 pm UTC \u2022 11 min In Season 5, Episode 14 of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-456501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}