When looking at real EGOTs, the Emmy is always the weirdest one. Take, for instance, Audrey Hepburn. The Hollywood legend took home her Emmy in 1993 for Outstanding Individual Achievement, Informational Programming for her PBS documentary series “Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn.” So, what could Lydia Tár have possibly won her Emmy for?
My first inclination was that she won her Emmy for “Outstanding Music Direction,” perhaps for one-year of music directing “The Kennedy Center Honors” or a “Live from Lincoln Center” concert performance. This was how real-life EGOT, legendary orchestrator and music director Jonathan Tunick, won his Emmy. However, I may be somewhat off-base about my assumption. In The New Yorker profile, the writer posits that Tár won her Emmy for producing an “American Masters” documentary about her hero Leonard Bernstein. Todd Field doesn’t confirm this to be true, but certainly throws out the possibility of that being the case.
“That would have been something she would have really embraced, to shore up her legacy story. It would be good for the Bernstein estate to let her lie about her association with Leonard Bernstein, even if she maybe never even studied with him, because the optics of that association would be very, very good, given that she’s a woman, given how Lenny’s life ended.”
Someone with Tár’s ego certainly could have made a celebration of her hero that ultimately turns out to be a celebration of herself. That definitely tracks with what we know about that character. That being said, her entire world revolves around music, be it writing, arranging, or conducting it, and I think all of her awards are a result of that work.