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Barack Obama wins an Emmy Award – and is halfway to an ‘EGOT’

The former US president's Emmy joins his two-Grammy awards.

The former US president's Emmy joins his two-Grammy awards. Photo: Getty

Former US president Barack Obama has an Emmy Award to go with his two Grammys.

Mr Obama won the best narrator award for his work on the Netflix documentary series Our Great National Parks at the Creative Arts Emmys on Sunday.

With the win, he is halfway to what is known in award circles as an EGOT – a special category of entertainers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. To date, 17 people have achieved he feat.

The five-part show, which features national parks from around the globe, is produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground.

Mr Obama was the biggest name in a category full of famous nominees for the award, including NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, naturalist David Attenborough and 12 Years a Slave actress Lupita Nyong’o.

Mr Obama is the second US president to have an Emmy after Dwight D. Eisenhower was given a special Emmy Award in 1956.

Mr Obama previously won Grammy Awards for his audiobook reading of two of his memoirs, The Audacity of Hope and A Promised Land. Michelle Obama won her own Grammy for reading her audiobook in 2020.

The Creative Arts Emmy Awards honour the best in artistic and technical achievement in various American prime time television genres including animation, documentary and reality TV.

The Primetime Emmy Awards, which recognises the best in US prime-time television, will be held on September 12.

Among the other Emmy recipients Sunday was the late Chadwick Boseman, who was posthumously awarded for his voice work.

The Black Panther, who died of colon cancer at age 43 in 2020, won for outstanding character voiceover for the Disney+ and Marvel Studios animated show What If…?

Boseman voiced his Black Panther character T’Challa on the show. It was one of his last projects.

Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson won his first Emmys – directing and outstanding documentary – his docuseries The Beatles: Get Back, which debuted Disney+ last year.

Get Back is based on material shot in early 1969 for the Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 feature film Let It Be. Both picture and sound went through a meticulous restoration process, building on techniques developed to restore World War I footage in Jackson’s 2018 documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old.

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