Judging Actors

To win an Emmy, TV's top stars not only have to be good,
they have to know when they're good

BYLINE: Ken Parish Perkins; Star-Telegram TV Critic -- If there's a method to the Emmy voting madness, Eric McCormack is shamelessly clueless.

On Sunday, as a best actor nominee for his work in the situation comedy Will & Grace, he'll attend the 52nd installment of the television industry's self-congratulatory ceremony, emotions on edge.

"You just can't judge your own work after a while," McCormack says.

Which is cause for concern, because winning an Emmy, he knows, isn't just about doing your best work, it's about picking your best work.

Unlike the Oscars, where nominees are judged on the totality of a performance in a movie, the often wacky world of the Emmys is a scattershot process, where best actor/actress contenders each submit a tape of one episode for judging, and supporting performers submit two (with all but their own scenes edited out). Just how important the actual selection is has been highlighted by the trials and tribulations of the daytime Emmys' most illustrious loser, Susan Lucci, the veteran soap opera star who's said to have botched 18 consecutive tries - before finally winning last year - because she was such a lousy judge of her own talent.

So awful were Lucci's submissions that author Tom O'Neil says voters - who are fellow television professionals - would often laugh hysterically when viewing her tape, usually a montage of scenes that showed little, if any, of the actor's range, something voters need for serious consideration.

"When a star is, quite frankly, too stupid to know what to hand in to the panel as a sample of their best work - I mean, one tape she sent showed her at her mother's grave pounding on her chest," says O'Neil, whose books on the Emmys have armed him with an encyclopedic knowledge of the awards show and its politics. "One year I heard a New York panel laughing. I was in the hallway. I said, 'What are they laughing at?' They said, 'Lucci's tape.' From what I hear, word of that got back to her. The next year she handed in a tape showing her range, and won."

John Goodman, who co-starred on Roseanne, is also said to be so inept at picking samples of his best work that the performances he gave on the tapes Roseanne submitted for best comedy actress were often far superior to the ones he gave on the tapes he entered for himself in the best actor race. (Goodman became so frustrated at losing that in 1996 he stopped submitting tapes for consideration.)

And O'Neil says he is certain that Sarah Jessica Parker lost out on a best actress honor last year because she submitted the infamous passing-gas episode of Sex and the City, "the single most tasteless half-hour in television," O'Neil says. "And I'm sure she was baffled as to why she lost."

Call it the Lucci effect if you wish. But it's a common problem for actors, who are usually uncomfortable talking about what woos Emmy voters, although it's clear what doesn't: younger-skewing shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Party of Five, and second-tier dramas like Nash Bridges and JAG.

It's important to pick a tape that shows off "a broad range of your acting ability," advises NYPD Blue's Dennis Franz, whose troubled Detective Andy Sipowicz won Emmys in 1994, '96, '97 and last year, beating out not only James Gandolfini of The Sopranos but also favorite Jimmy Smits, Franz's Blue co-star whom many had penciled in as a sure-shot because of a well-crafted and well-acted dying scene.

The key for Franz has been playing a character whose emotional turmoil is absolutely gut-wrenching. Last year, Franz actually disregarded the advice of his producers and agent by submitting a far more subdued episode, in which his character withdraws into a quiet, troubled disposition following the death of his wife, played by Sharon Lawrence, who tired of her part-time status and wanted off the show.

It was a gamble few could take, since Franz was betting that voters would know the character's back story and therefore incorporate the full range of not only the performance on screen but those that led up to it into their decisions. It's a tricky maneuver only veteran actors on hit shows can pull off.

"But aside from that, did I feel that it had the elements of the kind of thing that would win?" Franz asks, smiling sheepishly. "You do this long enough and, yeah, no one will admit it, but there are patterns to what your peers like and don't like."

One of Franz's co-stars on Blue, Gordon Clapp, who won in 1998 for best supporting actor, said he'd noticed a pattern that winners in his category usually played eccentric roles that gave the audience a glimpse into some kind of personal madness.

He's right, when looking at, say, Fyvush Finkel and Ray Walston of Picket Fences, Hector Elizondo of Chicago Hope and even The Practice's Michael Badalucco, a 1999 winner whose passion these days often resembles a man speeding toward a nervous breakdown.

"Actors will always tell you that they don't act to win awards, and for the most part that's true," says Clapp. "But, you know, the fact that these other guys had been singled out for those types of roles did give me the incentive to be more off the wall, because, if it isn't about winning awards, it's certainly about being able to stand out in a series where you're not the lead and you want screen time. Worst-case scenario is a body of work you're proud of."

But there's something to be said for too many choices. Amy Brenneman, who was nominated for best supporting actress in 1994 while on NYPD Blue and is up for best actress Sunday for her lead role in Judging Amy, says there were five or six episodes of Amy she obsessed over when deciding on her Emmy submissions. She finally decided on the show's second-to-last episode, a showy performance where her character's divorce is finalized.

"It's difficult because you don't know if this or that is what will get you nominated, let alone win," says Brenneman, whose stiffest competition might come from Sela Ward - whose portrayal of a woman coping with a divorce, her children and a new love in Once and Again was emotionally weighty - and Julianna Margulies, who offered a moving departure from ER. To show how Margulies' stature has risen, consider that she's a past Emmy winner from the same series, but in the best supporting actress category.

"All I know is that it needs to be an acting tour-de-force-type thing," Brenneman says. "We all know it when we see it. One of those, 'Damn, that girl is doing it' kind of thing."

Mary Tyler Moore did it - and often. With seven Emmys, more than any other actress, Moore once told Katie Couric during a Today show interview that she, too, fretted endlessly over her submissions, going through many episodes to see which showed a gamut of emotions, particularly unexpected anger, real tears and emotional growth, even though she was acting in a comedy.

Her co-star Ed Asner, whose seven Emmys top any actor, says exactly the same thing, remembering that his best supporting actor win on The Mary Tyler Moore Show came from an episode that had everything - fear, anger, laughter. "But mostly," says Asner, "it showed a side of the character that, because it was a comedy, viewers never really got to see. Those are the kinds of episodes that jolt people, because it's unexpected."

Faith Ford, a co-star on Norm who was nominated four times but never won for her work as the ditzy TV news reporter on Murphy Brown, says the episodes "[I] enjoy doing and move me" are usually the ones she chose.

"Your peers can be tough on you," Ford says. "But if your performance is honest and it's coming from a real place and the writing's good, then you have a better chance of getting nominated, and then winning, which is interesting, too, since it's not really like the Oscars, where your career really is altered by it. But, then, how would I know, since I've always been the bridesmaid and never the bride?"

Camryn Manheim of The Practice knows. She was hoping her 1998 Emmy for best supporting actress would translate into feature-film roles, but it hasn't. "That's OK," says Manheim, who is planning to produce her own films. "I'm not frightened by all this. I still have a lot to prove. But [winning an Emmy] was a defining moment in my life that will never be erased."

Defining moment or not, some actors believe the Emmys are more about self-promotion than the recognition of superior work. Winning an Emmy, says McCormack, merely "creates a buzz that your manager and agent can spin for a few days."

A tale of the tapes: What woos Emmy voters

Likability

Be mean and obnoxious, but redeemable. Eriq La Salle, who plays a devoted but ice-cold doctor on ER, has never won an Emmy, despite turning in some of that show's best performances. Emmy observer Tom O'Neil blames La Salle's drought on "that perpetual scowl on his face." Will & Grace's verbal sharpshooter Megan Mullally, unlike La Salle, humiliates with sweetness. She's nominated this year.

Play a beat cop, detective or private eye

Eighteen of them have won the best drama-series actor award in the last 28 years - eight in the past 10 races. Cagney & Lacey cops Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless took turns dominating the best actress category during most of the 1980s.

Emotional growth

Seinfeld's Jason Alexander suffered seven losses because his character never learned from his mistakes. Candice Bergen portrayed a bullheaded TV journalist on Murphy Brown, but she became an Emmy favorite after showing that her character, underneath the armor, had a warm heart.

Be an alcoholic, then overcome it

Bergen's Murphy Brown was a recovering alcoholic. So were the characters played by multiple best-actor winners Daniel J. Travanti (Hill Street Blues) and Dennis Franz (NYPD Blue). "Only when Linda Dano struggled for sobriety on Another World did she finally win an Emmy," O'Neil says.

Play twins

Give voters two votes for the price of one. Or 16, if you're Sally Field, who pulled off an upset for best actress in the made-for-TV movie category in 1977 over critics' favorite Jane Alexander by playing a woman with 16 personalities in Sybil. But that wasn't the biggest upset that year. The terrific Sada Thompson of Family lost best actress honors to Lindsay Wagner of Bionic Woman - who portrayed twins.__The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (September 8, 2000)