22A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 9, 1999 Awards have odd history Los Angeles Times With the 51st annual Emmy Awards on tap for Sunday on Fox, it's the perfect time to look at some of the strange, fun factoids in the history of the awards. Angela Lansbury isn't quite the Susan Lucci of the prime-time Emmys - but close. The star of the classic mys- tery series, "Murder, She Wrote," was nominated for best actress in a drama 'series for her role as Jessica Fletcher 12 times. She never won. Lansbury didn't have any better luck when she was nom- inated four other times in different cate- gories. "Dynasty": The popular ABC series, which starred John Forsythe, Linda Evans and Joan Collins, received 24 nominations during its run. It may have been a hit with viewers, but it never took home a single Emmy. Jackie Gleason was always a best man and never the groom when it came to the Emmys. Nominated twice for the award, once for "The Jackie Gleason Show" and once for "The Honeymooners," he saw his co-star Art Carney take home three statuettes - one for "The Honeymooners" and two for "The Jackie Gleason Show." Ted Danson was nominated seven times for best actor in a comedy for "Cheers" before he finally won in 1990 on his eighth attempt. The Sam Malone role brought him a second Emmy in 1993 Lucille Ball took home the 1952 Emmy for best female comedian for "I Love Lucy." But she lost the Emmy that year for most outstanding personality to Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, who appeared on the short-lived DuMont network. The other diverse nominees in the category were Jimmy Durante, Arthur Godfrey, Edward R. Murrow, Donald O'Connor and Adlai Stevenson. Harry Belafonte was the first black performer to win an Emmy. He won in 1959 for outstanding performance in a variety or music program or series for CBS' "Tonight With Belafonte, the Revlon Review." He had received two nominations four years earlier - for best male singer, which he lost to Perry Como, and for best specialty act, single or group, which went to Marcel Producer prepares for 0 Coutesy ofAP Lasephoto e Emmy. 'Dynasty' received 24 nominations, but not a singl( Marceau. Bill Cosby was the first black to win best drama series actor. He won in that category for three years running in the '60s for "I Spy," with the first in 1965. Only two other black actors have since won in that category: James Earl Jones won in 1991 for "Gabriel's Fire," and Andre Braugher took home the statuette last year for "Homicide: Lifc on the Street." Westerns have long kicked up the rat- ings dust on TV "Gunsmoke" is the first and only Western to have won the Emmy for best drama series. It won in 1957, beating out "Lassie," "Maverick," "Perry Mason" and "Wagon Train." What will winning an Emmy do for a show? Sometimes not much. Consider NBC's "My World and Welcome to It." The show took home a best comedy series Emmy in 1969, its first season, a particularly fortunate win given the net- work's decision that the show's first sea- son would also be its last. While movie sequels rarely do as well at the box office, in at least one case, Emmy gold repeated. "Eleanor and Franklin" won outstanding special in 1976. The sequel, "Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years" won in the same category the following year. The award for the most unusual Emmy category could arguably go to Jack Benny's 1957 Emmy for "best con- tinuing performance in a series by a man who essentially plays himself." The other nominees were Steve Allen, Sid Caesar, Perry Como and Jack Paar. Rarely do spinoffs of popular series succeed. But "Frasier" has broken that jinx, winning the Emmy for best come- dy an unprecedented five times in a row - and it is in the running again this year. It was the first spinoff series of an Emmy Award-winning comedy ("Cheers") to win in this category. Ingrid Bergman won an Emmy for her first dramatic TV performance for 1959's "The Turn of the Screw." She also won an Emmy for her final small screen perfonnance in the 1982 syndi- cated miniseries, "A Woman Called Golda." Jack Lemmon is nominated for an Emmy this year for his role as a Clarence Darrow-esque lawyer in Showtime's revival of the classic, "Inherit the Wind." Eleven years ago, Jason Robards won an Emmy for the same role in NBC's acclaimed version of the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee play about the Scopes "monkey trial." In 1985-86, all the nominees for out- standing guest performer in a comedy series appeared on "The Cosby Show": Roscoe Lee Brown, Earle Hyman, Danny Kaye, Clarice Taylor and Stevie Wonder. Brown won. "Peter Pan," with Mary Martin, won the best single program of the year Emrny in 1955. Ironically, one of the nominees in that same category was "Peter Pan Meets Rusty Williams" on "Make Room for Daddy." In 1969, Ned Glass ("Julia"), Hal Holbrook ("The Whole World Is Watching") and Billy Schulman ("Teacher, Teacher") were all nominat- ed for outstanding supporting actor. Apparently there was no best perfor- mance because no winner was chosen. Lee Grant won for outstanding single performance by a lead actress in 1971 for the NBC movie, "The Neon Ceiling." She competed against herself in that same category for her perfor- mance in the NBC "Columbo" movie, "Ransom for a Dead Man." 'special' Emmy ceremony Ls Ageles Ties "Special,' at least in television parlance, is said to be derived from "spectacular" - the term Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, NBC's legendary programming czar of the 1950s, coined for his network's star-studded showcases. Though Weaver has been called a visionary, it's hard to imagine he could have foreseen how "special" would be used r' today, describing Fox's penchant for showing unfortunate souls "caught on tape" being trampled by wildebeest, or bet- ter yet, having some moron intentionally risk killing himself. on the air- live! -by crashing a plane or trying to jump the state of Nevada on a motorcycle. It's somewhat reassuring, then, to know there are those who still embrace "special" in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Dropped, fumbled and kicked around during the bottom-line- oriented 1990s, the baton has been picked up by producer Don Mischer. Mischer is the producer of this Sunday's nighttime Emmy Awards, something he has done four of the last five years. The lapse occurred in 1996, when Mischer was laboring on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, which, in an age of hype, actually lived up to the "spectacular" designation. comesyor unesw es Mischer is currently bidding to reprise that task for Salt Jenna Elfman, pictured here in "EDtv," hosts this year's Lake City's Winte Games in 2002, even as he looks ahead Emmy awards. to a dizzying array of events this year. Beyond the Emmys, "You are serving many masters," Mischer said. "You are they include acting as one of five producers on NetAid, an serving the TV academy and their needs. The network alwa . international anti-poverty benefit combining TV, radio and wants to take you in a different direction. If the network had i the Internet planned for next month; the Kennedy Center their way - and I don't care which network itis -you would Honors, which he will again produce with George Stevens not be presenting four writing awards and four directing Jr. in December; and Barbra Streisand's sing-in-the-millen- awards on the Emmys. That's eight (out of 27 televised) nium New Year's Eve concert at the MGM Grand in Las awards, given to people that the audience at home really does- Vegas. n't know much about or care much about." In his office preparing for the Emmys -glancing periodi- The producer struggles with other arbitrary requirements, cally at colored note cards tacked to a board that plan every among them the 40-second cap placed on acceptance speech beat of the show - Mischer conceded the kind of specials he es. Mischer calls the time limit "ludicrous" but ultimately nec- enjoys are often at odds with what appears to be filling prime essary: As itsis, with advertising and promotion on the rise, the time. show has only 20 minutes for material that isn't directly tie, "It's hard to compare the Kennedy Center Honors with to presenting an award. 'Stunts Gone Bad,' " he said. Moreover, unlike the Oscars - which can seemingly run Yet the producer also acknowledged the "concept specials" three days if they needto - a priority is placed on ending the that once dotted the airwaves - putting two stars together, Emmys by 11 p.m. so the ceremony doesn't spill over into coming up with a theme and having a rollicking, singing, local news time. dancing old time - "simply don't work anymore" from a rat- Mischer attributes that mostly to network affiliates, which ings standpoint. generate the most revenue from their news and "almost see CBS is planning music-themed specials later this year fea- prime time as the filler between their newscasts." turing Ricky Martin, Celine Dion and Shania Twain, but for As a result, Mischer said, "On Emmy night, I sit here with the most part variety and music specials on the major net- all kinds of planned cuts, and we just keep adjusting the show, works are a thing of the past. And while HBO runs concerts hoping to come out (on time)." - recently setting fashion trends back a decade or so with This hardly sounds like the way television should treat i Cher - a pay channel can also afford to reach a smaller audi- own premiere showcase, and Mischer fully recognizes the ence. Emmys have a tradition of leaving everybody griping about Programs such as the Kennedy Center Honors have thus something. become increasingly rare. Mischer sees this as being driven "These are kind of no-win situations for producers' he largely by a reluctance on the part of networks to risk sacri- noted. "As (Oscars producer) Gil Cates has often said, 'Youe ficing a night ratings-wise, even in the pursuit of a slightly at the mercy of the award show gods,' and the things that make more elevated goal. or break the show are things you cannot really produc~e. If "As recently as 10 or 12 years ago, there was still more of Camryn Manheim walks up there and says, 'This is for fat a sense of conscience, I think, among broadcasters, especially girls,' that's something we couldn't produce, but that's a great networks, to air a show that seemed to be right to put on the moment ... If someone pulls out a (thank you) list and rea air, that would reflect well on them," without regard to ratings, from it, that's not." Mischer said. "It doesn't happen much anymore." Something of a perfectionist, Mischer said he seldom fin- Award shows, in fact, have become the ratings-grabbing ishes one of his projects feeling completely satisfied, tending - alternative to variety specials, and they have proliferated like to focus rather on what went wrong. Still, when the lights go rabbits. Not only have networks moved awards that weren't down and the camera conses on Sunday, he will endeavor for previously televised onto the air, but they keep creating new a few hours to make television "special" again, in the way Pat made-for-TV affairs such as the Blockbuster Entertainment, Weaver meant it. TV Guide and Source Hip-Hop awards, in the process threat- "I love television, and there's a tremendous amount of ening to exhaust the world's supply of cheap metals. mediocrity on television," Mischer said, betraying a gift for For all the awards out there, producing the Emmys still understatement. "On Emmy night, we get to look at the good entails a novel sort of juggling act - balancing various inter- stuff. When you see the best scenes from 'NYPD Blue' a ests and egos that mean virtually nothing to the viewer at 'ER' and 'Law & Order,' and the best comedic scenes, i home, such as ensuring a level of parity in the number of stars good television. 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