Stephen Sondheim, Oscar Hammerstein and More Who Died Just an Emmy Shy of EGOT Status

At last year’s Primetime Emmys, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul became EGOTs when they won outstanding original music and lyrics for co-writing a tongue-twisting song for Only Murders in the Building.

At the previous Primetime Emmys, which were held in January 2024 due to labor disputes that delayed the show, Elton John clinched EGOT status when he won outstanding variety special (live) for his special, Elton John: Farewell from Dodger Stadium.

The first person ever to become an EGOT winner, though nobody had coined that clever acronym yet, was composer Richard Rodgers, who sealed the deal as the result of a Primetime Emmy win in 1962.

Eight other stars clinched EGOTs with their Emmy wins – meaning they had won the three other necessary awards (at least one Grammy, Oscar and Tony) previously: Rita Moreno (1977), John Gielgud (1991), Marvin Hamlisch (1995), Mike Nichols (2001), Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice and John Legend (all 2018) and Alan Menken (2020).

The 2025 Primetime Emmys are coming up on Sept. 14, with the Creative Arts Emmys slated for Sept. 6-7, but no one will become an EGOT winner this year as a result of an Emmy win. How can we be so sure? There are currently only six people who are just an Emmy shy of EGOT status and they are all dead.

Five of these people were composers or lyricists, so we decided to take a closer look at their awards histories. Here are the six people who just needed an Emmy to pull off EGOTs, but died without ever bringing home that award.