Sixth Update: 6:45 pm: It’s done, with The Young and the Restless the night’s big winner, scooping up the big one, for outstanding drama series, along with five others, for “Special-Class Special” (an hour-long tribute to the late Jeanne Cooper, who appeared on the show for four decades); lead actor in a drama (Billy Miller); younger actress in a drama (Hunter King); supporting actress in a drama (Amelia Henle); and writing team, drama. Separately, Venice the Series, won for best drama – new approaches, while Days of Our Lives picked up for supporting actor (Eric Martsolf); younger actror (Chandler Massey) ; and lead actress (Eileen Davidson).
Notable win in the daytime drama categories went to One Life to Live, which ended up online after its long run on broadcast TV ended. The show won for directing team, drama, one of six Emmys that One Life and All My Children, another broadcast veteran that ended up online, won this weekend (the creative categories, mostly for technical-side achievements, were handed out Friday).
It was also a very good night for Steve Harvey, who won for best game show host for Family Feud, and his Steve Harvey syndicated show for best talk show, informative. On top of that, Harvey was vacationing in Bali, rather than sitting in a hotel ballroom in a tuxedo on a beautiful summer day.
Three Spanish-language categories were included for the first time, including winners for Morning Program (Un Nuevo Dia); Entertainment Program (Clix) and Daytime Talent (Rodner Figueroa, one of four nominated from El Gordo Y La Flaca). Here’s the full list in order:
SUPPORTING ACTOR, DRAMA
Eric Martsolf, Days of Our Lives
SUPPORTING ACTRESS, DRAMA
Amelia Heinle, The Young and the Restless
CULINARY PROGRAM
The Mind of a Chef
CULINARY HOST
Bobby Flay, Bobby Flay’s Barbecue Addiction
LEGAL COURTROOM PROGRAM
The People’s Court”
GAME SHOW HOST
Steve Harvey, Family Feud
TALK SHOW HOST
TIE: Dr. Mehmet Oz, The Dr. Oz Show and Katie Couric, Katie
WRITING TEAM, DRAMA
The Young and the Restless
DIRECTING TEAM, DRAMA
One Life to Live
YOUNGER ACTRESS, DRAMA
Hunter King, The Young and the Restless
YOUNGER ACTOR, DRAMA
Chandler Massey, Days of Our Lives
TALK SHOW, INFORMATIVE
Steve Harvey
DAYTIME TALENT IN SPANISH
Rodner Figueroa, El Gordo Y La Flaca
TALK SHOW, ENTERTAINMENT
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
MORNING PROGRAM
Good Morning America
MORNING PROGRAM IN SPANISH
Un Nuevo Dia
GAME SHOW
Jeopardy
SPECIAL-CLASS SPECIAL
The Young and the Restless: The Jeanne Cooper Tribute
ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAM IN SPANISH
Clix
ENTERTAINMENT NEWS PROGRAM
TIE: Entertainment Tonight and Extra
LEAD ACTOR, DRAMA
Billy Miller, The Young and the Restless
LEAD ACTRESS, DRAMA
Eileen Davidson, Days of Our Lives
DRAMA, NEW APPROACHES
Venice The Series
DRAMA
The Young and the Restless
Fifth Update: 6:30 pm: Phew, that was exhausting. Linda Bell Blue, the 19-year executive producer of Entertainment Tonight, brought along a multi-page thank-you speech, a young assistant to help wrangle her speech and, well, let’s just call it a profligate sense of the audience’s patience. And that was for ET’s tie, the second such of the night, with Extra for outstanding entertainment news program. Blue decided to make up for too many past shrugs by the Academy, but thanked, among others, “the 36 bosses I’ve had over the past 19 years,” and CBS chief Les Moonves, the show’s original star, Mary Hart, and her successor Nancy O’Dell. By contrast, Extra’s Mario Lopez took longer to walk up to the stage than to give his thanks. The audience seemed thankful for that small blessing. And given the X-rated advice that Sharon Osbourne launched into after the ET/Extra win as she prepared to present the next awards, it’s safe to say the show is painting the town Blue, not Red.
Meanwhile, the big acting categories in daytime drama, best actor and actress, went to Billy Miller of The Young and The Restless (another win for the show, the night’s biggest hardware haul so far) and Eileen Davidson of Days of Our Lives.
Fourth Update: 6:02 PM: A good night so far for Steve Harvey. He grabs Emmys for outstanding game show host, his Steve Harvey wins for outstanding talk show – informative, and he’s hanging out in Bali on vacation instead of in the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton. Win-win-win, as they like to say. The Ellen Degeneres Show picked up the win for Outstanding Talk Show – Entertainment.
Third Update: 5:50 PM: “We’re making history! Oh god — shit! Guys, I’m sorry if my nipples fall out.”
And so, the Daytime Emmy Awards tonight boldly stepped into the new era of web-only livestreaming, from the Beverly Hilton hotel.
The historic opener was delivered as the handoff to host Kathy Griffin, by one of the webcast’s Red-Carpet Who Are You Wearing Vocal Fryers. Some awkward minutes of delay and lack of mic-ing later, during which Griffin could be heard faintly in the distance saying something like, “Welcome to the shit show…this is your night…” Griffin began her monologue “for real” – as in, we could see and hear her.
“Some guy named Maliki was doing an interview, and said, ‘Kathy Griffin would be my dream host.’ And I said, ‘For no money – I’m there!’” Griffin said, on the news, if not within the universe of the daytime soap crowd.
Griffin called the show the Hidden Gem of the Emmys – her one feint at middle-of-the-road respectability. She spent the balance of her opening schtick talking about her experience at last year’s HLN telecast Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony during which she was seated at a table with Bethenny Frankel, who desperately wanted to leave, Dr. Drew (“So, no black tar heroine for me!”) and Kris Jenner – “I been calling her daughters whores in my act for years!” Jenner, Griffin claimed, had left the bedside of her daughter, who had just given birth to North West, “to come to the freakin’ Daytime Emmys” and kept posing for photographers with vodka shots. “I didn’t know there were side deals you could make with booze companies,” Griffin said, sadly.
By Griffin’s account, the highlight of last year’s ceremony happened when Dr. Drew and Dr. Oz were recruited to help some “soap starlet that had lost Hottest Star of Tomorrow” who got so wasted in the public stalls she could not get up. “I still don’t know who that was,” she insisted. “My only hope is tonight will equal that!”
Second Update 5:40 PM: Mario Lopez had the slightly challenging position of introducing both best game show host and best talk show host, which ended in a tie, and had none of the three in the room to accept the award. On the game show side, a long-time associate of winner Steve Harvey who accepted the award on his behalf said in a gracious speech that Harvey was vacationing in Bali because he didn’t believe he would win. On the talk show side, Katie Couric (Katie) tied with Dr. Mehmet Oz (Dr. Oz).
First Update 5:32 PM: The night’s first winners include Bobby Flay for Best Culinary Chef, and The Mind of a Chef for Best Culinary Program. Amelia Heinle of The Young and The Restless scooped up best supporting actress in a drama, and Eric Martsolf of Days of Our Lives have won for best supporting actor in a drama. Acceptance speeches are longer, and Kathy Griffin gets to go a little bluer, but with no ads, this show moves along (puff, puff).
The fate of the Daytime Emmy Awards rests on Kathy Griffin‘s (no doubt surgically enhanced) shoulders tonight. In this age of rush and hurry, it is possible some few of you out there are unaware of the plight of the once mighty Daytime Emmy Awards: A trophy show that once averaged 20-some million viewers – back in its Will Susan Lucci Ever Win One era – has since fallen on hard ratings times and, after years of clinching last-minute broadcast deals with the CW, CBS and HLN, failed to secure a telecast home for the first time in many years. On June 5, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced the ceremony would be live-streamed, followed by an announcement Griffin had been signed to host Sunday’s 41st annual Daytime Emmy Awards, at the Beverly Hilton ballroom. Deadline will have the live-stream and keep an eye out for key winners (see the video at the link on the full story. It plays automatically).
Griffin is what is known in the industry as trophy-show tritonal (i.e., can blow up at any minute). Accepting her 2007 Primetime Emmy for best reality program (for her Bravo reality series My Life On The D-List), she jolted members of the media who were taking their annual Covering The Daytime Emmys nap, when she noted a lot of people coming up on stage were thanking Jesus for their win, adding, “I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus,” adding, “Suck it, Jesus — this award is my god now!” For an encore, she said, backstage after the win, “I hope I offended some people. I didn’t want to win the Emmy for nothing.”
Fans of Griffin’s work know she paints on a larger canvas than just trophy shows — having also given CNN’s Decency Police the vapors every New Year’s Eve for the past several years, and, in 2010, knotting some knickers with the filming of her hotel poolside Pap smear — done, she said, to raise awareness about cervical cancer.
“I am beyond thrilled to be hosting what I’m told is the most important television event of the year,” Griffin said when NATAS issued its alert that Griffin would be hosting, out of reach of the FCC, not to mention other defenders of Common Decency and some group calling itself Miracle Theater that had taken out a full-page ad back in 2007 to deconstruct Griffin’s Emmy acceptance speech. “I can only hope that at the end of the evening, critics and fans alike will compare it to the experience they once had watching Neil Armstrong take man’s first step on the moon,” Griffin added, of tonight’s Daytime Emmy-hosting gig. “My only regret is knowing that this epic evening will distract millions of viewers from enjoying this year’s World Cup. I apologize to FIFA.”
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