Barack Obama: president, Nobel laureate, and now an Emmy winner

By: 2 years ago

Barack Obama attends the premiere of Netflix’s Descendant during the Martha’s Vineyard African-American Film Festival at MV Performing Arts Center on August 05, 2022 in Edgartown, Massachusetts. AFP

WASHINGTON — Hollywood newcomer Barack Obama was awarded an Emmy for narrating his Netflix documentary series “Our Great National Parks,” the Television Academy announced Saturday.

The former two-term US president had already won a pair of Grammy Awards — for audio versions of his memoirs “The Audacity of Hope” and “Dreams from My Father” — so he now only needs an Oscar and a Tony to complete the estimable EGOT.

According to an Entertainment Weekly tracker, only 17 people have achieved an EGOT, including Mel Brooks, Whoopie Goldberg, Audrey Hepburn and — most recently — Jennifer Hudson.

One other president had already been awarded an Emmy — Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 — although his was an honorary award.

After leaving office in 2017, both Obama and his wife Michelle have each written best-selling memoirs, and in addition to their non-profit foundation, have established a production company which has inked a major deal with Netflix, reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars.

Their company’s first documentary for the streaming service, “American Factory,” won the Oscar for best documentary feature and an Emmy for directing, though the awards went to the filmmakers and not to the Obamas themselves.

Obama’s successor to the presidency, Donald Trump, did not win an Emmy for his reality competition show “The Apprentice,” although he was nominated twice.

Other nominees in Obama’s narrator category included former NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (“Black Patriots: Heroes Of The Civil War”), Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o (“Serengeti II”) and veteran naturalist David Attenborough (“The Mating Game”).

Obama also received the Nobel Peace Prize after his 2008 presidential election win, for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”