The Triple Crowners: An Introduction

Trophy-giving is a fickle activity -- a function of timing and momentum as much as talent -- but it's less of an "accident" or passing fancy if a performer is able to lock down the triple crown of acting awards: the Tony, the Oscar and the Emmy. Eighteen people have done this. It's a rarified sphere of actors. Hilary Swank may have two Oscars (deserved, says I -- shut up), but she probably will never be grouped in the same category as these 18 people, whose versatile talent was able to thrive in three different media over the course of many years.

Who are they? You can probably think of one or two right off the bat. Let me help: They are seven men and 11 women. Seven of the 18 are still alive -- the youngest is 57, the oldest is 85. On the list, there are 10 Americans, five Brits, a Puerto Rican, a Swede and a Hepburn. I'll start profiling each of them next week, beginning with the first man to complete the triple crown (one of film's great character actors) and ending with the most recent joiner (an icon for 35 years and still delivering). When possible, I've reviewed the films and TV shows for which they won their Oscars and Emmys. Unfortunately, their performances on Broadway are lost to the ages, though I did see one triple crowner's Tony-winning turn in person in 2003 (the award was massively deserved, of course).

Why do this? Anyone who loves movies or pop culture loves the silly exhiliration of obsessing over awards, but identifying and appreciating the triple crowners is more useful than silly -- together, they paint a definitive portrait of accomplishment in the performing arts over the past 80 years. These 18 actors are/were blessed with both talent and the respect of their peers and critics. It's a panorama of skill and wattage. It's about great work admired greatly, and it says a lot about ourselves as connoiseurs. So let's celebrate 'em.

Five items before the series begins:

1. I'm just focusing on performers. Eight non-actors (all men) have also attained the triple crown: director Mike Nichols, writer-director-"actor" Mel Brooks, composers Marvin Hamlisch and Richard Rodgers, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, composer-conductor Ralph Burns, writer Sidney Sheldon and director-choreographer Bob Fosse, who turned the triple crown into a grand slam; Fosse won all three awards in 1973 (an Oscar for Cabaret, an Emmy for "Liza with a 'Z'" and two Tonys for "Pippin").

2. I'm not including performers who've attained the triple crown by winning in non-acting or non-competitive categories. For example, John Gielgud and Whoopi Goldberg have all three awards, but they got their Tonys for directing and producing, respectively. In addition to her two Oscars and five Emmys, Barbra Streisand was awarded a special Tony -- but it was a non-competitive "Star of the Decade" designation. Like an honorary Oscar, it doesn't count here.

3. Now, a word on toughness. Of the three, the Oscar is the hardest to pocket. It's given in the narrowest industry (the heavenly bodies really have to align for you to make it to the proverbial podium) and has the narrowest field (only 20 acting nomination slots per year, compared to 40 for the Tonys and a whopping 80 for the Emmys). The Emmy is, of course, the easiest; dozens of channels/networks provide limitless entrees into the pool, and performers in a recurring series have the chance to win the award every year they're on the air. The Tony falls somewhere in the middle. It's great for recognizing new and untested talent (people come out of nowhere to win), but it restricts itself to only three dozen venues (large theater houses) in just one city (New York). An actor might give the performance of his life in a small dive on the Lower East Side or in a regional theater in the Poconos or San Diego, but it won't count for a Tony. [We're not getting near the Grammys because they're ridiculous. The best music almost never wins, and there are 40,000 categories. Last year, I won Best Non-Musical Non-Recording by a Pale Journalist.]

4. With this scale of difficulty in mind, some luminaries are very close to the triple crown. Meryl Streep, who has a pair of Oscars and a pair of Emmys, hasn't been on Broadway since 1977 -- how is that possible? -- when she received her first and only Tony nomination. If she were to set foot on the proper stage today, she'd join the club instantly. Kevin Spacey, Mercedes Ruehl, Ellen Burstyn, Kevin Kline, Joel Grey and Judi Dench (who herself has a rich history on television) need an easy Emmy to join. Folks, just guest-star on "Two and a Half Men" and you're golden. [Grievance: Cloris Leachman (who has an Oscar and eight goddamn Emmys) could've easily joined the club if she was still attached to Mel Brooks' upcoming stage musical adaptation of Young Frankenstein. C'mon, Cloris.]

5. None of the 18 triple-crowners won their Emmy first. Perhaps this illustrates how hard it is to break out of TV into film and/or theatre. Eleven started off with the Tony, the remaining seven with the Oscar. The Emmy came last for all but four of them. Perhaps this illustrates how Emmys are treated like bonus footnotes -- garnishes, if you will -- on an established star's resume.

This series will launch a week from today -- a medley of aperitifs to contrast the creative sloth of August. Tune in throughout the month for thinkpieces (long and short) on the triple crowners. Be prepared to discuss not only the merits of the actors but also the validity of their awards. The discussion will no doubt take place at the intersection of affection ("God, I love her") and semantics ("God, he should not have won for that"). Before then and in between triple crown posts, there will be the usual grabass...

Julie White: More than meets the eye

I kinda fell in love with Julie White when she won a Tony last month. In an auditorium full of mellifluous thespians, this Texan gave an endearingly shrill and unapologetic acceptance speech. The video is crap, but you can catch her priceless reaction to hearing her name. "What!" she screams, enraged, and starts marching down the aisle in a fury. After all, she beat Redgrave, Lansbury and Swoosie Kurtz, and wouldn't you be mad? I wish I'd seen her on Broadway in "The Little Dog Laughed," in which she played a Hollywood agent who (I've heard) could -- in a battle of the superbitches -- drive Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly into the ground.

What a delight, then, to settle into Transformers last week and find White with a plum role: Shia LaBeouf's endearingly shrill and meddlesome mother. It's a part that she (with the able assistance of on-screen husband Kevin Dunn) conjures into a kind of mini-master class on how to act in a blockbuster. A blockbuster gives an actor a silly, wide open canvas. White works herself into Michael Bay's broad strokes and adds flashes of color and flourish, turning the standard Mom-of-the-Hero role into a delightful portrait of a suburban Amazon -- fierce and demanding and cracked-out and incapable of swallowing bullshit but still prim and manicured and focused on family. "It's been a weird day," she tells LaBeouf at one point, "and I've been drinking." The delivery is superb. The rhythm of the movie swallows it up almost immediately, but it's a great moment -- a comic arrow slinged into the movie's proverbial bullseye. The audience in Wellfleet, Mass., erupted with laughter and the hits kept on coming: "You touch that dog and I'll kill you!" she screeches at a police officer as she's kidnapped by the authorities. "Were you masturbating?" she says immediately when she and Dunn walk in LaBeouf's bedroom. When Dunn suggests that the word and the topic are only for fathers and sons, White says curtly, "We could call it 'Sam's Happy Time.'" It's an obvious joke, but the delivery is expert.

In short, White steals the movie from a bunch of giant (mostly boring) robots. She is her own special effect. I want more. And if you stay through the credits, you'll get it. Clearly, the filmmakers had too much good footage of her to include in the actual movie.

Tony nominees' Hollywood detours

A fun fact before we start: Grey Garden's Mary Louise Wilson played dressy Tessie Tura opposite Angela Lansbury's Mama Rose in the 1974 Gypsy revival. Both Wilson and Lansbury are nominated for Tonys this year at ages 74 and 81, respectively (and current nominee Christine Ebersole played Tessie Tura in the Bette Midler Gypsy in 1994). Anyway, as you can see, I'm finally getting around to looking at the Tony nominations. I've pulled out some nominees to flag their sterling (if abbreviated) film work. I love seeing Broadway greats slumming in silly movies to make a buck, and I love seeing their talent blaze in material that actually deserves them. Their film work, regardless of pedigree, is always enjoyable.

Dana Ivey, Butley. She's never won a Tony! Madness. I love how committed she is to the weirdness of The Addams Family and Addams Family Values (above, with Anjelica Huston), in which she plays a haughty woman who slowly succumbs to the romantic wiles of Cousin It.

Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon. Admire him for Dracula -- it was the start of a long film career playing baddies. My favorite is his slimy work in Dave as the jealous White House chief of staff.

Brian F. O'Byrne, The Coast of Utopia, has a crucial role as the Irish Catholic priest engaging in spiritual joust with Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby. O'Byrne's dark, worldly portrayal is definitely not Crosby-esque.

Billy Crudup, The Coast of Utopia. His flawless, charismatic performance as Stillwater's frontman in Almost Famous shoulda been a starmaker. It's probably better that it wasn't. Crudup is top-knotch in anything he does, unless the material is crap.

Audra McDonald, 110 in the Shade. The woman with the Midas touch. She's peachy in 110 and perfect perfect perfect as the nurse who attends Emma Thompson in Wit.

Debra Monk, Curtains. I didn't much like Solondz's Palindromes, but Monk is hilarious and damn frightening as the crazy Christ-obsessed mother of a flock of handicapped children.

Jennifer Ehle, The Coast of Utopia. She outshines her temporal counterpart Gwyneth Paltrow as one of the four leads in Neil LaBute's time-jumping, now-forgotten romance, Possession.

Christine Ebersole, Grey Gardens. She plays a nasty governor in the Farley-Spade movie Black Sheep, delivering zingers with classically-trained bitchiness: "Neushwender are you finished stirring that drink or is this some kind of fucking science experiment?" and, as she notices Chris Farley being strung up by his underwear on a satellite dish during a stump speech: "I have heard the voice of the voters and the voters said...holy shit!"