Actor, author, and philanthropist Viola Davis became a brand-new inductee into the EGOT Club—also known as the small, rarefied group of celebrities who have earned an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony in their careers—on Sunday, taking home her first win at the Grammys for her performance of the audiobook for her memoir, Finding Me.
Davis is only the third Black woman in history to become an EGOT, with other members of the club including Audrey Hepburn, Rita Moreno, Mel Brooks, Mike Nichols, and Jennifer Hudson (and, in the fictional TV-sphere, 30 Rock’s Tracy Jordan, who turned the coveted accolade into a diamond-encrusted necklace). “It has just been such a journey,” Davis said in her acceptance speech at the Grammys, announcing jubilantly: “I just EGOT!”
“I wrote this book to honour the six-year-old Viola, to honour her, to honour her life, her joy, her trauma, her everything,” Davis added of Finding Me, which writer Jazmine Hughes praised in an April 2022 New York Times profile of Davis, writing: “Reading her memoir…you understand where her ability comes from: Only someone who has already been dragged into the depths of emotion readily knows how to get back there.”
In addition to her Grammy, Davis holds a Tony for her lead performance as Rose Maxson in Fences, an Oscar for the play’s 2016 film adaptation, and an Emmy for her turn as Annalise Keating on the TV show How to Get Away With Murder—and even with an EGOT under her belt, who knows what awards still lie in Davis’s future?
This article was originally published on Vogue.com.
