Viola Davis broke a new record on her career: she became the third black woman to achieve EGOT status after taking home the Grammy Award for Audio Book, Narration and Storytelling Recording, during the non-televised portion of the awards ceremony, which took place on February 5th.
What Is the EGOT Status?
EGOT artists are those who have managed to win, at least, one statuette in each of the most important awards in the world of entertainment: an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Oscar Award, and a Tony Award. According to Vanity Fair Magazine, this term was invented by actor Phillip Michael Thomas, and so far, only 18 celebrities have achieved this prestige, starting with actor Richard Rodgers, who achieved it at age 17, in 1962.
The rest of the celebrities that joined this prestigious list are: Helen Hayes (1977), Rita Moreno (1977), Andrew Lloyd Webber (2018), Audrey Hepburn (1994), Marvin Hamlisch (1995), Jonathan Tunick (1997), Mel Brooks (2001), Mike Nichols (2001), Whoopi Goldberg (2002), Scott Rudin (2012), Robert Lopez (2014), John Legend (2018), Barba Streisand (2018), Tim Rice (2018), Alan Menken (2020), Jennifer Hudson (2022), and Davis.
It should be noted that Davis is the third black woman to achieve this historic milestone, preceded by Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Hudson.
An Ode to Her Childhood
This award is just the icing on the cake for Davis, who sought to honor her past through the narration of her memoir audiobook Finding Me, which, according to Variety, takes readers on a journey through her career, taking significant breaks at the most important moments of her lifework. In addition, both the book and its audiobook are a kind of a call against racism and other social incidents that the star of the movie The Woman King herself has had to tolerate throughout her life.
“I wrote this book to honor the 6 year old Viola. To honor her, her life, her joy, her trauma, everything. And it has been such a journey. I just EGOT!”, said the actress at the time she received the award, and took a moment to thank some members of the team that supported her during the making of the audiobook, as well as members of her own family.
Davis achieved her EGOT status after taking home two Tony Awards for the plays King Headly II and Fences; for having won the Emmy Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series for the TV show How to Get Away with Murder; and for having obtained the Oscar Award, in 2016, for the cinematic adaptation of Fences.
