With all the Grammy-night focus on Whitney and Adele, a rather remarkable accomplishment took place on Sunday night without much notice: Scott Rudin won a Grammy for producing the original cast album to the Broadway show "The Book of Mormon."
By itself, the Grammy would be just another award in a career that has already had plenty. But the honor was the final piece in an achievement so rare that only 10 other people in show-business history have ever done it: the EGOT, a nickname for winning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.
Rudin won his Emmy for executive producing the 1984 children's dance documentary "He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'," which also won the doc Oscar (but not for Rudin); his Oscar for producing 2007's Best Picture winner "No Country for Old Men"; and seven Tonys for producing four plays ("Copenhagen," "Doubt," "The History Boys" and "God of Carnage"), two musicals ("Passion" and "The Book of Mormon") and a revival ("Fences").
The Grammy win makes him the first person to complete the EGOT since Whoopi Goldberg did it by winning an Emmy and a Tony in 2002. He is also the only person to ever win all four by producing.
The other EGOT winners are actors Helen Hayes, Rita Moreno, John Gielgud, Audrey Hepburn and Goldberg; composers Richard Rodgers, Marvin Hamlisch and Jonathan Tunick; director Mike Nichols; and actor/writer/director/producer Mel Brooks.
Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli and James Earl Jones have won all four awards, but Streisand's Tony, Minnelli's Grammy and Jones' Oscar were honorary or special awards rather than competitive awards.
Rudin is Oscar-nominated again this year for producing "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close." He also produced "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," which received five nominations.
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