Steven Spielberg wins Grammy, becoming 9th Jew in elite EGOT ranks

The most recent Jewish winner before Spielberg was the songwriter Benj Pasek, who secured the status in 2024 with an Emmy.

By Philissa Cramer, JTA

The legendary director Steven Spielberg has become the ninth Jew to secure “EGOT” status after winning a Grammy for producing a documentary about the music of John Williams.

Spielberg was awarded the Grammy for producing “Music by John Williams,” which won best music documentary, before the televised ceremony on Sunday.

The win makes him the 22nd person to win the coveted quartet of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards.

Spielberg has won three Oscars, including best picture for the 1993 Holocaust drama “Schindler’s List”; four Emmys for TV programming including two World War II dramatic miniseries; and a Tony for producing the Broadway show “A Strange Loop.”

Spielberg adds to a large proportion of Jewish artists to win all four of the top entertainment awards.

Nine of the 22 EGOTs have been Jewish, including the first person to ever reach the status, composer Richard Rodgers. Rodgers and Marvin Hamlisch, who was also Jewish, are the only people to have added a Pulitzer Prize to the EGOT crown.

The most recent Jewish winner before Spielberg was the songwriter Benj Pasek, who secured the status in 2024 with an Emmy.

One of Spielberg’s more celebrated recent works was a drama based loosely on his own Jewish family.

“The Fabelmans,” released in 2022, earned him three Oscar nods — for best picture, best director and best screenplay — but no wins.

In promoting that movie, Spielberg said antisemitic bullying when he was a child had informed his sense of being an “outsider,” which he translated into his filmmaking.

“Schindler’s List,” meanwhile, spurred the creation of the USC Shoah Foundation, a leading center for preserving Holocaust testimonies that has also recently embraced the task of preserving stories of contemporary antisemitism, too.

“It was, emotionally, the hardest movie I’ve ever made,” Spielberg said about his most decorated movie — for which John Williams earned an Oscar for the score. “It made me so proud to be a Jew.”