Benj Pasek, Justin Paul become 20th and 21st EGOT winners for ‘Only Murders in the Building’

Composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul just won their first Emmy Awards at Sunday night’s Creative Arts ceremony, making them the 20th and 21st people ever to achieve an EGOT. They won in the Best Music and Lyrics category alongside Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman for their catchy tune “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” from “Only Murders in the Building.” They were up against song nominees from “Girls5eva,” “Saturday Night Live,” “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” and “True Detective: Night Country.” Enjoy watching our interview with Pasek, Paul, Shaiman and Wittman from earlier this summer.

The duo’s previous EGOT wins began in 2016 when they, along with composer Justin Hurwitz, won the Oscar for Best Original Song for “La La Land.” They won the Tony in 2017 for their score from that year’s Best Musical champ, “Dear Evan Hansen.” In 2018 they won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album for that same show. And in 2022, they added more Tonys as co-producers of the Best Musical champ “A Strange Loop.”

Only 19 people previously have won the awards grand slam known as the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony). They are (in chronological order of achievement) composer Richard Rodgers, actress Helen Hayes, actress Rita Moreno, actor John Gielgud, actress Audrey Hepburn, composer Marvin Hamlisch, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, writer/director/composer Mel Brooks, director Mike Nichols, actress/producer Whoopi Goldberg, producer Scott Rudin, composer Robert Lopez, singer and actor John Legend, composer Tim Rice, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, composer Alan Menken, actress/producer Jennifer Hudson, actress Viola Davis and composer Elton John.

There are a total of six people who have won a combination of the Tony, Oscar and Grammy without an Emmy Award. All of them are deceased: actor Henry Fonda, composer Oscar Hammerstein, composer Alan Jay Lerner, composer Frank Loesser, composer Stephen Sondheim and composer Jule Styne.

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