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Awards royalty filled actress categories, led by Parker, Janney and Streep
from LA Times (test)
by Marketing
NEWCOMERS ARE CERTAINLY WELCOME AS POTENTIAL WINNERS OF PRIMETIME
Emmy lead actress awards, but at the 56th ceremony held on Sept. 19, 2004, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, the award recipients (and most of their competitors) turned out to be Hollywood royalty of various stripes.
→ Sarah Jessica Parker won her first acting Emmy in 2004 for HBO’s “Sex and the City” in 2004. She won as a producer of the series in 2001.
REVISITING KEY EMMY MOMENTS FROM TWO DECADES AGO
A Shoutout To Gotham City
In the lead actress in a comedy category, Sarah Jessica Parker picked up her first acting Emmy for playing Carrie Bradshaw in the final season of HBO’s “Sex and the City,” having been nominated five times previously in the category (she won a 2001 Emmy as a producer on the series). She’d been up against several comedy legends: Jennifer Aniston (“Friends,” NBC), who won the category in 2002; Patricia Heaton (“Everybody Loves Raymond,” CBS), who won it in 2000 and 2001; firsttime nominee Bonnie Hunt (“Life With Bonnie,” ABC); and Jane Kaczmarek (“Malcolm in the Middle,” Fox), who earned seven nominations in the category for her role but zero Emmys.
Presented with her Emmy by Jon Cryer and Charlie Sheen, Parker smooched husband Matthew Broderick (who won an Emmy in 1994) and ascended the stage. She thanked the usual suspects — including her lawyer and publicist — and added a special acknowledgment of New York City “passersby, who always wanted the best for me.”
Parker’s “Sex” costar Cynthia Nixon also won that evening for supporting actress in a comedy, her first Emmy win.
A Fully Inclusive Win
It was hard to be too surprised when Allison Janney won her fourth Emmy for her performance as C.J. Cregg on NBC’s “The West Wing”; she’d also won in 2000 and ’01 as supporting actress and in ’02 as lead. She also won two for “Mom” (CBS) in 2014 and ’15 and as guest actress for “Masters of Sex” (Showtime) in 2014.
Janney was up against Edie Falco (“The Sopranos,” HBO), who had won in this category in 1999, ’01 and ’03 and went on to win it again for “Nurse Jackie” (Showtime) in 2010; Jennifer Garner (“Alias,” ABC), nominated four times for the role but no wins; Mariska Hargitay (“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” NBC), who won the category in 2006; and Amber Tamblyn (“Joan of Arcadia,” CBS) on her first nomination.
Janney did something unusual in accepting her award for lead actress in a drama from presenters Victor Garber and Taye Diggs — she invited her fellow nominees onto the stage. “Mariska, I know I told you something last night, that I would give this to you, and it seems like such a silly idea in this moment,” she said. “But I would love it if you would come up and stand with me because we’re wearing such beautiful green dresses.” Hargitay did stand onstage, to the side — but no other nominees joined her.
SELF-EMBRACING THE AWESOME
Oscar winners abounded in the lead actress in a miniseries or movie category, but Meryl Streep seemed to have an early lock on the prize forHBO’s “Angels in America.” It was her second Emmy; her first was for “Holocaust” (1978, NBC) and she’d win a third in 2017 as narrator for “Five Came Back.” Her win helped “Angels” sweep all of the miniseries acting categories (with costars Al Pacino, Jeffrey Wright and MaryLouise Parker).
Besides costar Emma Thompson (Emmy winner for a 1998 “Ellen” guest appearance), Streep was up againsttriple Emmy winners Glenn Close (“The Lion in Winter,” Showtime) and Judy Davis (“The Reagans,” Showtime) and fourtimerHelen Mirren (“Prime Suspect VI: The Last Witness,” PBS).
“There are some days when I myself think I’m overrated,” Streep said, taking a dramatic pause. “But not today!” Thanking “Angels’” Emmywinning creator Tony Kushner, she said, “The bravest thing in the world is that writer who sits alone in his room and works out his grief, his rage, his imagination and his deep desire to make people laugh, and he makes a work of art that then transforms the role into truth.”
