Octavia Spencer Wins First Emmy, Denies Attenborough Record — SkimNews
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- Octavia Spencer won her first Emmy in the Outstanding Narrator category for her work on Investigation Discovery's true-crime series "Lost Women of Alaska," at the Peacock Theater ceremony.
- Sir David Attenborough, 100, had a 40% chance of winning per the article and was nominated twice — for Netflix's "A Gorilla Story: Told By David Attenborough" and Nat Geo's "Ocean with David Attenborough" — but Spencer's win keeps Norman Lear (age 98 at his 2020 win) as the oldest Emmy winner ever.
- Spencer beat an A-list field including Jodie Foster, nominated for Netflix's "Breakdown: 1975," and Werner Herzog, nominated for Nat Geo's "Ghost Elephants."
- Spencer had been previously nominated for the same Narrator award last year and in 2020 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series for "Self Made: Inspired By The Life of Madam C.J. Walker."
- Attenborough still holds the records for oldest Primetime Emmy nominee and oldest Daytime Emmy winner, the latter earned at age 99 for "Secret Lives of Orangutans."
- Spencer publicly campaigned hard for the award, attending multiple Emmy events and telling Deadline she has been studying the true-crime genre since reading a true-crime story at age 11.
Why it matters: Spencer's win is a first-career milestone for an established film star long overlooked by Emmy voters, and it cost Attenborough a record that would have been a feel-good capstone to a 70-plus-year television career — he remains the oldest nominee and oldest Daytime Emmy winner, but the primetime record stays with the late Norman Lear.
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