Emmys spotlight: A trio of drama guest acting winners
Though the title of the awards has changed over the decades, the two guest star in a drama series Emmys are among the most competitive handed out during the Creative Arts ceremony. Cicely Tyson earned the most nomination in this category with nine. Michael J. Fox received seven nominations earning the award in 2009 for FX’s “Rescue Me.” And who have won the most in the past five decades? Patricia Clarkson, Charles S. Dutton, Cherry Jones, Ron Cephas Jones, John Lithgow, Shirley Knight, Margo Martindale, Patrick McGoohan, Amanda Plummer and Alfre Woodward have each won twice.
This year five drama nominees appeared in FX’s “Mr. and Mrs. Smith“- Michaela Cole, Paul Dano, Sarah Paulson, Parker Posey and John Turturro. Rounding out the nominees for Best Drama Guest Actress are Claire Foy for “The Crown,” Marcia Gay Harden for “The Morning Show” while Nestor Carbonell for “Shogun,” Tracy Letts for “Winning Times: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” and Jonathan Pryce for “Slow Horses” are also up for Best Drama Guest Actor.
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The award has been a swan song for a veteran performer such as Beulah Bondi. The cherished character actress had excelled over the years playing warm-hearted mothers, earning two Oscar nominations for 1936’s “The Gorgeous Hussy” and 1938’s “Of Human Hearts.” Her best-known movie role was opposite Victor Moore in Leo McCarey’s 1937 masterpiece “Make Way for Tomorrow,” in which they played a longtime married couple who are forced to live apart when they lose their home. Of her acting style, Bondi once said” I’m verry cooperative, and if you’ll just tell me exactly what you want, I’ll always try to do it”. She was 87 when she made her final acting appearance on the December 2, 1976, episode of CBS’ “The Waltons” in the heartbreaking episode “The Pony Cart.” Bondi, then 87, plays Martha Corrine, Grandpa’s (Will Geer) sister-in-law. At first the Waltons welcome her visit, but soon find the 90-year-old a meddlesome busybody and want her to leave. But Martha Corrine is keeping secret as to the real reason why she’s come for a visit. The performance is a four-hankie weepie in the best sense of the word. She’s stunning and her scenes with John Boy (Richard Thomas), who knows her secret, are exceptional. It would be her final performance. She was 91 when she died in 1981 from pulmonary complications after a fall she took tripping over her cat.
You’ll need at least one box of Kleenex for the Nov. 11, 2004, episode of NBC’s ER” titled “Time of Death” guest starring Ray Liotta. He earned the Emmy for his extraordinary turn as Charlie Metcalf, an alcoholic ex-con who comes into the ER on death’s door. The episode chronicles the final hour in his life in which he experiences Elizabeth Kubler -Ross’ five stages of death and dying -denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The doctors try extraordinary measures to save his life, but they can’t stop the internal bleeding and then his kidneys begin to shut down. Liotta is best known for his acclaimed roles in 1986’s “Something Wild” and Martin Scorsese’s 1990 gangster classic “Goodfellas,” but there is something even more special about his turn in this installment and those piercing blue eyes expressing everything he’s feeling. And it’s a punch to the gut when he asks Sam (Linda Cardellini) to touch his face when the end is near. Besides the Emmy, Liotta also won the GoldDerby TV Award for drama best guest actor and GoldDerby nominated him in 2010 for Drama Guest Actor of the Decade.
Patrick McGoohan came to fame in the 1964-67 TV series “Secret Agent” and the innovative 1967-68 “The Prisoner,” which he also created. He won his two guest starring Emmys for his quite literally killer performances in the beloved Peter Falk murder-mystery series. He received his first Emmy for his Oct. 27, 1974, turn in the outstanding single performance by a supporting actor in a comedy or drama series for the “By Dawn’s Early Light” episode in which he plays the cool, by-the-book Col. Lyle C. Rumford who runs a military academy. When he learns the board president is planning on turning the school into a co-ed junior college, Rumford kills him. He believes he’s committed the perfect murder until Columbo not only arrives on campus.
He won his second Emmy this time as guest star in a drama series for the third of his four appearances on “Columbo” on the Feb. 10, 1990 episode “Agenda For Murder,” which he also directed This time, McGoohan plays the high-powered Los Angeles attorney who wants to become the attorney general of the U.S. and hopes it will be happen when his longtime friend (Denis Arndt) is named as the vice presidential candidate on the popular governor’s presidential ticket. But McGoogan’s snobby, odious gum-chewing Oscar Finch discovers that a shady businessman whom he helped avoid jail time two decades ago needs help again. But this time around, Finch decides to get rid of the problem by murdering the man and staging it as a suicide. And of course, it’s just a matter of time before Finch finds himself doggedly pursued by Columbo.
McGoohan would appear one more time on “Columbo” in the 1998 “Ashes to Ashes” installment he also directed. He also directed and co-wrote he 2001 “Columbo: Too Many Notes.”
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