John Legend, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice have been awarded Emmys for their TV production of Jesus Christ Superstar, earning them EGOT status – meaning they have each won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards.
EGOT winners are an exclusive club: including the trio, only 15 people have ever managed to achieve the four wins, including Audrey Hepburn, Mel Brooks and John Gielgud.
Legend’s Oscar win came in 2015 for his song with Common, Glory, included on the soundtrack to Martin Luther King drama Selma. He won a Tony in 2017 as a co-producer of a revival of August Wilson’s play Jitney, and has won 10 Grammys. He is the first black male EGOT winner, and at 39, is also the joint youngest with the musicals songwriter and double EGOT winner Robert Lopez, who is 43 but achieved the status in 2014.
Lloyd Webber has received seven Tony awards, the first in 1980, shared with Rice for their score to Evita. The Eva Perón musical later won them an Oscar each in 1997, for their song You Must Love Me, after it was adapted for the screen with Madonna in the lead role. Webber has won three Grammys, while Rice has five.
Jesus Christ Superstar won outstanding live variety special at the Creative Arts Emmys, awarded on Sunday night at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles – the production also won awards for production design, lighting, technical direction and sound mixing.
Songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, known for their work on La La Land and The Greatest Showman, missed out on EGOT status after failing to win for their music in A Christmas Story.
Other big winners included Game of Thrones and Saturday Night Live, with seven awards each; Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown won five awards, in the wake of Bourdain taking his own life in July.
The Creative Arts Emmys are awarded in technical, writing and other categories ahead of the more prestigious Primetime Emmy awards on 17 September, where Legend could add to his haul – he is nominated in the outstanding lead actor in a limited series or movie category, for his performance as Jesus Christ.
• This article was updated to correct an error – John Legend is the first black male EGOT winner. The first black winner was Whoopi Goldberg. The G refers to Grammys, not Golden Globes.
