The Triple Crown of Acting
by hansolo647 | created - 15 Jan 2019 | updated - 28 Sep 2021 | Public
1. Helen Hayes
Actress | Airport
Known as "The First lady of the American Theater", Helen Hayes had a legendary career on stage and in films and television that spanned over eighty years. Hayes was born in Washington, D.C., to Catherine Estelle "Essie" Hayes, an actress who worked in touring companies, and Francis van Arnum Brown,...
American actress Helen Hayes (1900–1993) was the first performer to achieve the triple crown of acting. She completed the triple crown in 1953. Hayes was a 9-time Emmy (1), 3-time Tony (2), and 2-time Oscar (2) nominee, for a total of 14 TC nominations. She won two Oscars, two Tonys and an Emmy for a total of five competitive triple crown awards. She also won a Grammy in 1977 for Best Spoken Word Recording to complete the EGOT, for competitive Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony wins. Hayes is one of only two Triple Crown winners (along with Rita Moreno) to have achieved the EGOT.
1932 Academy Award for Best Actress – The Sin of Madelon Claudet
1947 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Happy Birthday
1953 Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actress
1958 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Time Remembered
1971 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress – Airport
2. Thomas Mitchell
Actor | Stagecoach
Thomas Mitchell was one of the great American character actors, whose credits read like a list of the greatest American films of the 20th century: Lost Horizon (1937); Stagecoach (1939); The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939); Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939); Gone with the Wind (1939); It's a ...
American actor Thomas Mitchell (1892–1962) completed the triple crown in 1953, two months after Helen Hayes. He was a 3-time Emmy (1), 2-time Oscar (1), and 1-time Tony (1) nominee, for a total of six TC nominations. Mitchell won three awards.
1940 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – Stagecoach
1953 Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actor
1953 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical – Hazel Flagg
3. Ingrid Bergman
Actress | Casablanca
Ingrid Bergman was one of the greatest actresses from Hollywood's lamented Golden Era. Her natural and unpretentious beauty and her immense acting talent made her one of the most celebrated figures in the history of American cinema. Bergman is also one of the most Oscar-awarded actresses, tied with ...
Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) completed the triple crown in 1960. She was a 7-time Oscar (3), 3-time Emmy (2), and 1-time Tony (1) nominee, for a total of 11 TC nominations. Bergman is the only Triple Crown winner to win three Oscars.
1944 Academy Award for Best Actress – Gaslight
1947 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Joan of Lorraine
1957 Academy Award for Best Actress – Anastasia
1960 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress – Startime (episode: "The Turn of the Screw")
1975 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress – Murder on the Orient Express
1982 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – A Woman Called Golda
4. Shirley Booth
Actress | Come Back, Little Sheba
Character actress Shirley Booth could play everything in all facets of show business, whether it was Miss Duffy the Tavern Owner's Man Crazy Daughter on "Duffy's Tavern", the sassy maid on TV's Hazel (1961) or the pathetic woman in Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). For those who only know her through...
American actress Shirley Booth (1898–1992) completed the triple crown in 1962. She was a 4-time Emmy (2), 3-time Tony (3), and 1-time Oscar (1) nominee, for a total of eight TC nominations. Booth won six awards.
1949 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play – Goodbye, My Fancy
1950 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Come Back, Little Sheba
1953 Academy Award for Best Actress – Come Back, Little Sheba
1953 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – The Time of the Cuckoo
1962 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series – Hazel
1963 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series – Hazel
5. Melvyn Douglas
Actor | Being There
Two-time Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglas was one of America's finest actors, and would enjoy cinema immortality if for no other reason than his being the man who made Greta Garbo laugh in Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy Ninotchka (1939), but he was much, much more.
Melvyn Douglas was born Melvyn Edouard...
American actor Melvyn Douglas (1901–1981) completed the triple crown in 1968. He was a 3-time Oscar (2), 2-time Emmy (1), and 1-time Tony (1) nominee, for a total of six TC nominations. Douglas won four awards.
1960 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play – The Best Man
1964 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – Hud
1968 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie – CBS Playhouse
1980 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – Being There
6. Paul Scofield
Actor | A Man for All Seasons
Though his number of film roles amount to a bit over 30, Paul Scofield has cast a giant shadow in the world of stage and film acting. He grew up in West Sussex, the son of a schoolmaster. He attended the Varndean School for Boys in Brighton. The love of acting came early. While still high school ...
British actor Paul Scofield (1922–2008) completed the triple crown in 1969. He was a 2-time Oscar (1), 1-time Emmy (1), and 1-time Tony (1) nominee, for a total of four TC nominations. Scofield won three awards.
1962 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play – A Man for All Seasons
1967 Academy Award for Best Actor – A Man for All Seasons
1969 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie – Male of the Species
7. Jack Albertson
Actor | Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
A former song-and-dance man and veteran of vaudeville, burlesque and Broadway, Jack Albertson is best known to audiences as "The Man" in the TV series Chico and the Man (1974), for which he won an Emmy. In 1968 Albertson, the brother of actress Mabel Albertson, won the Oscar for Best Supporting ...
American actor Jack Albertson (1907–1981) completed the triple crown in 1975. He was a 5-time Emmy (2), 2-time Tony (1), and 1-time Oscar (1) nominee, for a total of eight TC nominations. Albertson won four awards.
1965 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play – The Subject Was Roses
1969 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – The Subject Was Roses
1975 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in Variety or Music – Cher
1976 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series – Chico and the Man
8. Rita Moreno
Actress | West Side Story
Rita Moreno is one of the very few performers to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony and a Grammy, thus becoming an EGOT. She was born Rosita Dolores Alverío in the hospital in Humacao, Puerto Rico on December 11, 1931 (but raised in nearby, smaller Juncos, which had no hospital), to seamstress Rosa ...
Puerto Rican actress Rita Moreno (born 1931) completed the triple crown in 1977. She is a 6-time Emmy (2), 1-time Oscar (1), and 1-time Tony (1) nominee, for a total of eight TC nominations. Her Emmy win saw her complete the EGOT for competitive Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony wins. Her Grammy win was in 1972 in the Best Recording for Children category. Moreno is the first Hispanic actor to win the Triple Crown and is one of only two Triple Crown winners who have also achieved the EGOT.
1962 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress – West Side Story
1975 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play – The Ritz
1977 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in Variety or Music – The Muppet Show
1978 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress for a Single Appearance in a Comedy or Drama Series – The Rockford Files
9. Maureen Stapleton
Actress | Reds
Academy Award-winner Maureen Stapleton was born June 21, 1925 in Troy, New York, to Irene (née Walsh) and John P. Stapleton. Her family was of Irish descent. Maureen moved to New York City at the age of eighteen and did modeling to pay the bills. Already a Tony Award-winner, she made her Academy ...
American actress Maureen Stapleton (1925–2006) completed the triple crown in 1982. She was a 7-time Emmy (1), 6-time Tony (2), and 4-time Oscar (1) nominee, for a total of 17 nominations. Stapleton won four awards.
1951 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play – The Rose Tattoo
1967 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Among the Paths to Eden
1971 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – The Gingerbread Lady
1982 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress – Reds
10. Jason Robards
Actor | All the President's Men
Powerful and highly respected American actor Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Hope Maxine (Glanville) and stage and film star Jason Robards Sr. He had Swedish, English, Welsh, German, and Irish ancestry. Robards was raised mostly in Los Angeles. A star athlete at ...
American actor Jason Robards (1922–2000) completed the triple crown in 1988. He was an 8-time Tony (1), 5-time Emmy (1), and 3-time Oscar (2) nominee, for a total of 16 TC nominations. Robards won four awards.
1959 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play – The Disenchanted
1977 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – All the President's Men
1978 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – Julia
1988 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie – Inherit the Wind
11. Jessica Tandy
Actress | Driving Miss Daisy
A beloved, twinkly blue-eyed doyenne of stage and screen, actress Jessica Tandy's career spanned nearly six and a half decades. In that span of time, she enjoyed an amazing film renaissance at age 80, something unheard of in a town that worships youth and nubile beauty. She was born Jessie Alice ...
British-American actress Jessica Tandy (1909–1994) completed the triple crown in 1990. She was a 5-time Tony (3), 3-time Emmy (1), and 2-time Oscar nominee (1), for a total of 10 TC nominations. Tandy won five awards.
1947 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – A Streetcar Named Desire
1978 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – The Gin Game
1983 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Foxfire
1988 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Foxfire
1990 Academy Award for Best Actress – Driving Miss Daisy
12. Jeremy Irons
Actor | Dead Ringers
British actor Jeremy Irons was born in Cowes, Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England. He is the son of Barbara Anne Brereton (Sharpe) and Paul Dugan Irons, an accountant. Young Jeremy didn't prove very fond of figures. He visited mainland England only once a year. He wound up ...
British actor Jeremy Irons (born 1948) completed the triple crown in 1997. He is a 3-time acting Emmy (2), 1-time Oscar (1), and 1-time Tony (1) nominee, for a total of five TC nominations. Irons has won four TC awards.
1984 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play – The Real Thing
1991 Academy Award for Best Actor – Reversal of Fortune
1997 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance – The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century
2006 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie – Elizabeth I
Note: Irons has an additional Emmy win in a non-acting category, winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator in 2014 for Game of Lions.
13. Anne Bancroft
Actress | The Graduate
Anne Bancroft was born on September 17, 1931 in The Bronx, NY, the middle daughter of Michael Italiano (1905-2001), a dress pattern maker, and Mildred DiNapoli (1907-2010), a telephone operator. She made her cinema debut in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) in 1952, and over the next five years appeared...
American actress Anne Bancroft (1931–2005) completed the triple crown in 1999. She was a 6-time (1) acting Emmy, 5-time Oscar (1), and 3-time Tony (2) nominee, for a total of 14 TC nominations. Bancroft won four triple crown awards.
1958 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play – Two for the Seesaw
1960 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – The Miracle Worker
1963 Academy Award for Best Actress – The Miracle Worker
1999 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Deep in My Heart
Note: Bancroft won an additional Emmy in 1970 in the variety program category, as the star of the special Annie, the Women in the Life of a Man.
14. Vanessa Redgrave
Actress | Coriolanus
On January 30, 1937, renowned theatre actor Michael Redgrave was performing in a production of Hamlet in London. During the curtain call, the show's lead, Laurence Olivier, announced to the audience: "tonight a great actress was born". This was in reference to his co-star's newborn daughter, ...
British actress Vanessa Redgrave (born 1937) completed the triple crown in 2003. She is a 6-time Oscar (1), 6-time Emmy (2), and 3-time Tony (1) nominee, for a total of 15 TC nominations. Redgrave has won four awards.
1978 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress – Julia
1981 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Playing for Time
2000 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – If These Walls Could Talk 2
2003 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Long Day's Journey into Night
15. Maggie Smith
Actress | Gosford Park
One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor ...
British actress Maggie Smith (born 1934) completed the triple crown in 2003. She is a 9-time Emmy (4), 6-time Oscar (2), and 3-time Tony (1) nominee, for a total of 18 TC nominations. Smith is the first and only Triple Crown winner to win seven awards.
1970 Academy Award for Best Actress – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
1979 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress – California Suite
1990 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Lettice and Lovage
2003 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – My House in Umbria
2011 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Downton Abbey
2012 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series – Downton Abbey
2016 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series – Downton Abbey
16. Al Pacino
Actor | Serpico
Alfredo James "Al" 'Pacino established himself as a film actor during one of cinema's most vibrant decades, the 1970s, and has become an enduring and iconic figure in the world of American movies.
He was born April 25, 1940 in Manhattan, New York City, to Italian-American parents, Rose (nee Gerardi)...
American actor Al Pacino (born 1940) completed the triple crown in 2004. He is an 8-time Oscar (1), 3-time Emmy (2), and 3-time Tony (2) nominee, for a total of 14 TC nominations. Pacino has won five awards.
1969 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play – Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?
1977 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play – The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel
1993 Academy Award for Best Actor – Scent of a Woman
2004 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie – Angels in America
2011 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie – You Don't Know Jack
17. Geoffrey Rush
Actor | The King's Speech
Geoffrey Roy Rush was born on July 6, 1951, in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, to Merle (Bischof), a department store sales assistant, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the Royal Australian Air Force. His mother was of German descent and his father had English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. ...
Australian actor Geoffrey Rush (born 1951) completed the triple crown in 2009. He is a 4-time Oscar (1), 2-time Emmy (1), and 1-time Tony (1) nominee, for a total of seven TC nominations. Rush has won three awards.
1997 Academy Award for Best Actor – Shine
2005 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie – The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
2009 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play – Exit the King
18. Ellen Burstyn
Actress | Requiem for a Dream
Ellen Burstyn was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Correine Marie (Hamel) and John Austin Gillooly. She is of Irish, French/French-Canadian, Pennsylvania Dutch (German), and Native American ancestry.. She worked a number of jobs before she became an actress. At 14, she was a short-order cook at a ...
American actress Ellen Burstyn (born 1932) completed the triple crown in 2009. She is an 8-time Emmy (2), 6-time Oscar (1), and 1-time Tony (1) nominee, for a total of 15 TC nominations. Burstyn has won four awards.
1975 Academy Award for Best Actress – Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
1975 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Same Time, Next Year
2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series – Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
2013 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Political Animals
19. Christopher Plummer
Actor | Beginners
Legendary actor Christopher Plummer, perhaps Canada's greatest thespian, delivered outstanding performances as Sherlock Holmes in Murder by Decree (1979), the chilling villain in The Silent Partner (1978), the iconoclastic Mike Wallace in The Insider (1999), the empathetic psychiatrist in A ...
Canadian actor Christopher Plummer (born 1929) completed the triple crown in 2012. He is a 7-time Emmy (2), 7-time Tony (2), and 3-time Oscar (1) nominee, for a total of 17 TC nominations. Plummer has won five awards.
1974 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical – Cyrano
1977 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie – The Moneychangers
1994 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance – Madeline
1997 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play – Barrymore
2012 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – Beginners
20. Helen Mirren
Actress | The Queen
Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. ...
British actress Helen Mirren (born 1945) completed the triple crown in 2015. She is an 11-time Emmy (4), 4-time Oscar (1), and 3-time Tony (1) nominee, for a total of 18 TC nominations. Mirren has won six awards.
1996 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Prime Suspect: The Scent of Darkness
1999 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – The Passion of Ayn Rand
2006 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Elizabeth I
2007 Academy Award for Best Actress – The Queen
2007 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Prime Suspect: The Final Act
2015 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – The Audience
Helen Mirren is the only person to have also won the British Triple Crown of Acting by being awarded the three equivalent honours in the British entertainment industry, the BAFTA Film Award, the BAFTA Television Award and the Laurence Olivier Award. It took her twenty-one years to complete the British Triple Crown, beginning with a BAFTA Television Award for Best Actress for Prime Suspect in 1992 and finishing in 2013 with the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Play for The Audience. In the meantime, she also won two more Television BAFTAs for Prime Suspect in 1993 and 1994 and the Film BAFTA for Best Leading Actress for The Queen in 2007. She was the sixth of seven people to have won the British Triple Crown of Acting, with Peggy Ashcroft, Judi Dench, Nigel Hawthorne, Albert Finney and Julie Walters all preceding her to the honour and Mark Rylance succeeding her
21. Frances McDormand
Actress | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Frances Louise McDormand was born on June 23, 1957, in Gibson City, Illinois. She was adopted by Canadian-born parents Noreen Eloise (Nickleson), a nurse from Ontario, and Rev. Vernon Weir McDormand, a Disciples of Christ minister from Nova Scotia, who raised her in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. She ...
American actress Frances McDormand (born 1957) completed the triple crown in 2015. She is a 5-time Oscar (2), 2-time Tony (1), and 2-time (1) acting Emmy nominee, for a total of nine TC nominations. McDormand has won four awards.
1997 Academy Award for Best Actress – Fargo
2011 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Good People
2015 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Olive Kitteridge
2018 Academy Award for Best Actress – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Note: McDormand has an additional Emmy win in a non-acting category, winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series for executive producing Olive Kitteridge.
22. Jessica Lange
Actress | Tootsie
Jessica Lange was born in 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota, USA, where her father worked as a traveling salesman. She obtained a scholarship to study art at the University of Minnesota, but instead went to Paris to study drama. She moved to New York, working as a model, until producer Dino De Laurentiis...
American actress Jessica Lange (born 1949) completed the triple crown in 2016. She is an 8-time Emmy (3), 6-time Oscar (2), and 1-time Tony (1) nominee, for a total of 15 TC nominations. Lange has won six awards.
1983 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress – Tootsie
1995 Academy Award for Best Actress – Blue Sky
2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – Grey Gardens
2012 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – American Horror Story
2014 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie – American Horror Story: Coven
2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Long Day's Journey into Night
23. Viola Davis
Actress | Fences
Viola Davis is a critically revered actress of film, television, and theater and has won rave reviews for her multitude of substantial and intriguingly diverse roles. Audiences across the United States and internationally have admired her for her work- including her celebrated, Oscar-nominated ...
American actress Viola Davis (born 1965) completed the triple crown in 2017.[16] She is the first black actor to win the triple crown.[16][17] She is a 3-time Oscar (1), 3-time Tony (2), and 4-time Emmy (1) nominee, for a total of 10 TC nominations. Davis has won four awards.
2001 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play – King Hedley II
2010 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Fences
2015 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series – How to Get Away with Murder
2017 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress – Fences
24. Glenda Jackson
Actress | Women in Love
Few in modern British history have come as far or achieved as much from humble beginnings as Glenda Jackson did. From acclaimed actress to respected MP (Member of Parliament), she was known for her high intelligence and meticulous approach to her work. She was born to a working-class household in ...
British actress Glenda Jackson (born 1936) completed the triple crown in 2018. She is a 5-time Tony (1), 4-time Oscar (2), and 4-time Emmy (2) nominee, for a total of 13 TC nominations. Jackson has won five awards.
1971 Academy Award for Best Actress – Women in Love
1972 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role – Elizabeth R
1972 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Series – Elizabeth R
1974 Academy Award for Best Actress – A Touch of Class
2018 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play – Three Tall Women
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