General Hospital and Anthony Geary Set Records at the Daytime Emmy Awards

General Hospital was the big winner at tonight’s Daytime Emmy Awards winning 5 awards including Best Drama Series. The show’s iconic lead actor Anthony Geary who plays Luke (of Luke & Laura lore) took home his record 7th Best Actor Emmy while his onscreen son Jonathan Jackson won his 5th Emmy, this one in the Supporting Actor category. The show also won Best Director and Supporting Actress honors for Nancy Lee Grahn who previously won this award for her work on what I consider the best soap ever, Santa Barbara…. Taking home Best Actress was Heather Tom of The Bold and the Beautiful who now has won four Daytime Emmys, and she’s the first actor to do it in three different acting categories (Lead, Supporting, and Younger Actress). Speaking of the younger actor awards, those went to first time winners Christel Khalil for The Young and the Restless and the brilliant Chandler Massey of Days of Our Lives. Best Writing also went to Days... On the Talk Show front, Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa won for a second year Best Hosts for the second year in a row, while their Live show won for the first time. Take a look at all the winners below, and for more on the Daytime Emmys, head here.

2012 Daytime Emmy Award Winners~

Drama Series: General Hospital
Directing: General Hospital
Writing: Days of Our Lives (yay!)
Lead Actor: Anthony Geary (General Hospital)
Lead Actress: Heather Tom (Bold & the Beautiful)
Sup. Actor: Jonathan Jackson (General Hospital)
Sup. Actress: Nancy Lee Grahn (General Hospital)
Younger Actor: Chandler Massey (Days of Our Lives) yay! 
Younger Actress: Christel Khalil (The Young & the Restless)
Talk Show Entertainment: Live with Regis and Kelly
Talk Show Informative: The Dr. Oz Show
Talk Show Hosts: Regis Philbin & Kelly Ripa (Live with Regis & Kelly)
Morning Show: The Today Show
Game Show: Jeopardy!
Game Show Host: Todd Newton (Family Game Night)
Culinary Show: Barbecue Addiction w/Bobby Flay
Culinary/Lifestyle Show Host: Sandra Lee (Semi Homemade Cooking)
Legal/Courtroom Show: Last Shot with Judge Gunn

General Hospital, Young & Restless and Days of Our Lives lead the Daytime Emmy nominations

This morning, the nominations for the 39th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards were announced and General Hospital led the way with a big 23 nominations. Next in line were The Young and the Restless with 16 and my personal favorite, Days of Our Lives with 15. Among Days nods were first time bids for long time soap vet Matthew Ashford (Jack) and Shelly Hening (Stephanie) who left the show early last year and now stars on CW’s The Secret Circle. Picking up her 8th nod was Crystal Chappell (Carly) who has since departed the show as well while Molly Burnett (Melanie) grabbed her second nod and breakout star Chandler Massey (Will) whose coming out storyline helped grab him a second consecutive nod. I also have to give a shout out to two of my friends who earned nods for their work on Days: Glen Alen for Makeup and Christopher Whitesell for Writing. Congrats Days folks! … Ok, enough gushing about Days, take a look at all the nominees in the big categories below and for the full list and info on the show, head here.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA
All My Children
Days of Our Lives
General Hospital
The Young and the Restless

TALK SHOW
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Live With Regis & Kelly
The Talk
The View

TALK SHOW / INFORMATIVE
Anderson
The Dr. Oz Show
The Doctors

TALK SHOW HOST
Anderson Cooper, Anderson
Dr. Oz, The Dr. Oz Show
Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa, Live
Rachael Ray, The Rachael Ray Show
All of The Doctors

LEAD ACTOR IN A DRAMA
Maurice Benard, GH
Anthony Geary, GH
John McCook, B&B
Darnell Williams, AMC
Robert S. Woods, OLTL

LEAD ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Crystal Chappell, Days
Debbie Morgan, AMC
Erika Slezak, OLTL
Heather Tom, B&B
Laura Wright, GH

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Bradford Anderson, GH
Matthew Ashford, Days
Sean Blakemore, GH
Jonathan Jackson, GH
Jason Thompson, GH

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Melissa Claire Egan, AMC
Genie Francis, Y&R
Nancy Lee Grahn, GH
Elizabeth Hendrickson, Y&R
Rebecca Herbst, GH

YOUNGER ACTOR
Eddie Alderson, OLTL
Chad Duell, GH
Chandler Massey, Days
Nathan Parsons, GH

YOUNGER ACTRESS
Molly Burnett, Days
Shelley Hennig, Days
Christel Khalil, Y&R
Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, B&B

Coming Out with “Days of Our Lives” and Outfest

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending a special event hosted by Outfest, the Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival, which is celebrating its 30th Anniversary this year. To celebrate, they have had a ton of big events including their recent Fusion Film Festival focusing on LGBT Films starring/created by people of color, and last night, they got together with NBC Universal to celebrate the long running soap Days of Our Lives. The show, which yes, I have watched since like 1984 (along with the dearly departed and fantastic soap Santa Barbara) has embarked on its first gay storyline~ the complicated, fascinating, difficult and incredibly emotional coming out of Will Horton, played by Daytime Emmy nominee Chandler Massey. His character has seen a lot of drama over the years usually fueled by his mother Sami Brady (Alison Sweeney, also the host of The Biggest Loser) and her shenanigans. Now, all of those experiences are affecting his coming out process. The hardest part of which has been having to admit it to himself. The show has been on fire with this storyline featuring amazing writing and a brilliant performance by the sure to be Emmy nominated again Massey. He has such a great natural quality and has wonderful honest chemistry and connections with all his costars including Sweeney, Bryan Datillo (his skeptical and slightly judgmental father Lucas), his somewhat pushy grandmother Kate played by the fierce and so fun Lauren Koslow and his loving and always understanding grandmother Marlena played by Emmy nominated daytime grande dame Deidre Hall. They were all at the event last night which featured clips from the show and a Q&A discussion about the storyline. Also at the panel was Wally Kurth who plays Justin whose character has a gay son, Sonny (Freddie Smith), that has been a mentor/friend to Will throughout this process…. It looks like romance will be in the cards for Will in the months ahead along with some big reactions from his family (some good, some bad, some confused). All I know is I haven’t been this excited about Days since Marlena was possessed by the devil back in the mid-90′s. It’s the perfect time to start watching as all the story lines are getting really good, the writing is strong across the board and the actors are really rising to the challenge. For more on the show, head to their website here, and take a look at my pictures from the event I attended with my friends and longtime Days fans Steve Kerem and Giana Mucci. It was so much fun and all the stars were  incredibly nice especially the tremendously charismatic Massey. He is going to be a big star, and how amazing was it to chat with a living soap legend in Ms. Hall? Just a great night honoring a wonderful show and an important, inclusive, and juicy storyline.

A Brief clip of some of Will’s “Coming Out” storyline on Days of Our Lives

And here are my pictures from the event:

Jason Boegh, Giana Mucci and Deidre Hall

Jason Boegh, Steve Kerem, Chandler Massey

Jason Boegh, Giana Mucci, Alison Sweeney

Jason Boegh, Giana Mucci, Lauren Koslow