The performer and producer Jennifer Hudson has joined the elite group of EGOT winners with her victory at the Tony awards in New York on Sunday night.
Known as US entertainment’s grand slam, the illustrious acronym EGOT signifies a recipient of an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award. Hudson received her Tony as one of the producers of A Strange Loop, which was named best musical at the ceremony at Radio City Music Hall. A Strange Loop received the greatest number of nominations at this year’s awards, with 11, and also won best book of a musical for Michael R Jackson who has already received the Pulitzer prize for his meta-musical about a black queer writer who is writing a musical about a black queer writer. In a five-star review, the Guardian critic Gloria Oladipo called it an “uproarious and crushing” account of one man’s search for himself.
Hudson is the 17th person to achieve EGOT status and, at the age of 40, the third youngest to do so. The most recent winners include Alan Menken, John Legend, Tim Rice, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Robert Lopez, the songwriter whose hits include Frozen and who is the only person to achieve the status twice.
Hudson won the best supporting actress Oscar in 2007 for her debut movie role as Effie White in Dreamgirls, an adaptation of the Broadway musical. Two years later, she won best R&B album at the Grammy awards for her eponymous debut studio album. A second Grammy came in 2017 as one of the principal Broadway cast members in The Color Purple, which won best musical theatre album. She received a Daytime Emmy award last year as a producer on the short animation Baba Yaga.
A Strange Loop has more than 40 producers including Alan Cumming, Ilana Glazer and Mindy Kaling.
