Triple Crown of Acting: Meet the 24 performers who have won Oscars, Emmys and Tonys

Matthew Stewart
·3 min read
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At the fifth annual Primetime Emmy Awards in 1953, Helen Hayes won the Best Actress award, thereby becoming the first performer to ever achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. This past Oscar and Tony recipient had now won all three of the American entertainment industry’s most prestigious acting prizes, demonstrating remarkable talent across film, stage, and television. Over the years, 14 women and nine men have followed in her footsteps. Scroll through our photo gallery to learn which two dozen entertainers belong to this exclusive group.

To be included on this list, an individual must have won each award in a competitive acting category. This excludes, for example, James Earl Jones, who was lauded with an honorary Oscar in addition to competitive Emmys and Tonys. Also left out are artists like Mel Brooks, John Legend, and Elton John, all or some of whose wins from the three organizations were for non-acting achievements.

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The most common order in which these awards have been won is Tony, Oscar, and Emmy, as demonstrated by eight performers (including six of the men). There are at least four examples of actors winning in most of the other possible orders, but none followed the Emmy-Tony-Oscar path, and only Helen Mirren bagged an Emmy first and a Tony last.

Mirren is also one of six members of this group to have scored an Oscar and a Tony for the same role (Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen” and “The Audience”). The others – who, unlike Mirren, all won their Tonys first – are Shirley Booth (Lola Delaney, “Come Back, Little Sheba”), Anne Bancroft (Anne Sullivan, “The Miracle Worker”), Paul Scofield (Thomas More, “A Man for All Seasons”), Jack Albertson (John Cleary, “The Subject Was Roses”), and Viola Davis (Rose Maxson, “Fences”). The only one to have received a Tony and an Emmy for a single role is Jessica Tandy (Annie Nations, “Foxfire”).

This roster’s 24 entrants are presented in order of when they completed the Triple Crown. Noted in addition to the wins that got them there are any competitive acting ones that occurred after they joined the club.

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