Three cheers for Helen Mirren: The only winner of the British and American Triple Crowns of Acting
“The Audience” – a play about Queen Elizabeth II and her various prime ministers – was a landmark in the career of Helen Mirren. This 2013 reprisal of her Oscar and BAFTA winning role from the 2006 film “The Queen” won her a long overdue Olivier Award, making her the fifth female to have bragging rights to the British Triple Crown of Acting. Two years later she bagged her first Tony for the play’s Broadway production, and became the first (and to date only) performer to have won the Triple Crown on both sides of the Atlantic.
Both Triple Crowns cover stage, film, and television acting; the U.K. one is comprised of the Olivier and BAFTA Film and TV Awards while the U.S. one includes the Tony, Oscar, and Emmy. Mirren – who spent 24 years working to complete her dual journey – happened to obtain each Triple Crown by winning the TV award first and the stage award last.
Before playing Queen Elizabeth II in any capacity, Mirren snagged three TV awards on both sides of the pond, with a fourth Emmy shortly following her BAFTA Film and Oscar triumphs in early 2007. She won all of her BAFTA TV Awards (1991-1993) and her first and last Emmys (1996; 2007) for “Prime Suspect.” Her middle two Emmys came for her work in the telefilm “The Passion of Ayn Rand” (1999) and the miniseries “Elizabeth I” (2006).
Since they were respectively established in 1949 and 1976, the American and British Triple Crowns have been won by 24 and eight actors. Mirren, who was 67 at the time of her Olivier win, placed behind only Peggy Ashcroft (78 in 1986) as the second oldest achiever of the British feat, with the average completion age being 59. Joining the American club at 69 (seven years past the average) put her behind four older members: Christopher Plummer (82 in 2012), Glenda Jackson (82 in 2018), Jessica Tandy (80 in 1990), and Ellen Burstyn (76 in 2009).
Three people with one acting Triple Crown are a single win away from completing the other. Those missing an American award are Judi Dench and Mark Rylance, who are both in need of an Emmy. That leaves Vanessa Redgrave, who has a non-competitive BAFTA Fellowship honor to her name but has yet to win a film acting award from the organization. Prior to her death in 2023, this subgroup also included Glenda Jackson, who was only missing an Olivier.
The list of living performers with two out of three U.S. awards consists of 90 names, while the corresponding U.K. roster includes 33. Of those, 29 (32%) and 10 (30%) – including Redgrave, Dench, and Rylance – have been nominated at least once for the award they are missing.
In addition to her 11 total Triple Crown wins, Mirren’s resume includes 22 nominations for the six associated awards. Over the course of four decades, she has been recognized by each voting body a minimum of three times, with almost all of her initial wins having come on her third or fourth tries.
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?