This Celebrated Hollywood Actress Tried To Turn Down Her Emmy — Here’s What Really Happened
A famous Hollywood actress once tried to turn down her Emmy, and the real story behind that decision reveals her early battles with fame and artistic conviction.
A Well-Known Hollywood Actor Once Tried to Turn Down Her Emmy (Photo Credit –Instagram)
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Emmy stood as a symbol of honour for many performers, but for Meryl Streep, it once carried a weight she did not welcome. Her name had already begun to rise across cinema with a force that only grew over six decades. She had started to show a rare command on screen, the same command that would bring her 21 Academy Award nominations with three wins and 32 Golden Globe nominations with eight wins.
She also took home Oscars for Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie’s Choice, and The Iron Lady, yet the Emmy brought a different struggle.
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The Holocaust Miniseries & An Unwanted Honor
In 1978, the four-part miniseries “Holocaust” aired, shifting the course of Streep’s early career. The story followed two German families in Berlin before and during World War Two, and Streep delivered a performance powerful enough to earn her the ‘Outstanding Leading Actress in a Limited Series’ Emmy. The recognition came with certainty, and she was told she would win. However, that knowledge pushed her into conflict, per Far Out Magazine.
Meryl Streep believed that performances lived in their own space and did not belong in a race for prizes. She fired back with a clear line that framed her stance. She said she did not think performances should be pulled out of context and placed against each other, and as a result, turning down the Emmy became a way to defend that belief.
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Still, rejecting the Emmy entirely was more complicated than she expected. She was at an early stage in her career and needed the financial benefits tied to such recognition, but that practical reality clashed with her artistic conviction, leaving her in a difficult place.
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the first award meryl streep won was an emmy for holocaust, if that counts for anything pic.twitter.com/mjoAf55BRF
Fame After Holocaust & A Disturbing Street Incident
The success of Holocaust brought another unexpected weight. Streep’s fame arrived suddenly and without warning, and the public attention sometimes turned unsettling.
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One day, while riding her bike through Manhattan, a group of men spotted her and leaned out of a car window, shouting “Hey, Holocaust Hey, Holocaust” as if the show’s title could be thrown at her like a name. Streep felt the sting of it, knowing how serious the subject was and how strange it felt to hear it tossed into the street.
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She later said it was absurd that a chapter of history as painful as that could be reduced to men yelling at an actress from a moving car. That moment underlined why she questioned the reward system in the first place. She tried to reject the Emmy to make a point that creative work should stand on its own merit without being pushed into competition, and her stance came from a desire to protect the integrity of the craft.
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Streep later won other Emmys, but the memory of the one she tried to refuse remained tied to a time when she questioned the meaning of awards and the strange turns of fame.
