Bill Maher, always a bride's maid
The 'Real Time' host has been nominated 22 times. And he's lost, 22 times.
By Ray Richmond, Special to the Los Angeles Times
12:28 PM PDT, June 3, 2010
Bill Maher doesn't feel like a loser. And the truth is, it's a bit odd to be labeling a guy that way who has earned 22 Emmy Award nominations — 11 for his seminal strange-bedfellows talk show "Politically Incorrect," nine for his HBO late-night series "Real Time With Bill Maher" and a pair for stand-up comedy specials.
It's just that Maher has never won. Three years ago, he surpassed 18-time nominee Angela Lansbury as having earned the most nominations without taking home a single Emmy trophy, an ongoing legacy of defeat dating to 1995.
Larry Charles, himself a two-time Emmy victor for "Seinfeld" in the early 1990s and director of the 2008 Maher docu-comedy " Religulous," notes of Maher's record-setting winless run, "It's just an astounding thing, really. The fact Bill does the kind of thought-provoking show no one else is doing anymore and consistently gets nominated year after year is, to me, of greater significance than the arbitrary outcome of who wins."
Maher, however, seems to take his string of losses in better humor.
To what do you attribute the fact that you are the all-time Emmy Awards "non-winner," if you will, with precisely zero wins to show for nearly two dozen nominations?
You know, that's an awfully good question. I mean, you'd think I'd have won one just by clerical error. Or it should be like when you get your card punched at Subway. For every 10 nominations, you get one Emmy free. I should have two by now.
(More here.)
By Ray Richmond, Special to the Los Angeles Times
12:28 PM PDT, June 3, 2010
Bill Maher doesn't feel like a loser. And the truth is, it's a bit odd to be labeling a guy that way who has earned 22 Emmy Award nominations — 11 for his seminal strange-bedfellows talk show "Politically Incorrect," nine for his HBO late-night series "Real Time With Bill Maher" and a pair for stand-up comedy specials.
It's just that Maher has never won. Three years ago, he surpassed 18-time nominee Angela Lansbury as having earned the most nominations without taking home a single Emmy trophy, an ongoing legacy of defeat dating to 1995.
Larry Charles, himself a two-time Emmy victor for "Seinfeld" in the early 1990s and director of the 2008 Maher docu-comedy " Religulous," notes of Maher's record-setting winless run, "It's just an astounding thing, really. The fact Bill does the kind of thought-provoking show no one else is doing anymore and consistently gets nominated year after year is, to me, of greater significance than the arbitrary outcome of who wins."
Maher, however, seems to take his string of losses in better humor.
To what do you attribute the fact that you are the all-time Emmy Awards "non-winner," if you will, with precisely zero wins to show for nearly two dozen nominations?
You know, that's an awfully good question. I mean, you'd think I'd have won one just by clerical error. Or it should be like when you get your card punched at Subway. For every 10 nominations, you get one Emmy free. I should have two by now.
(More here.)
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