THE 38th Annual Daytime Emmys were held June 19, 2011, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The ceremony was marked with tributes to daytime icons, a helping of Las Vegas entertainment, and, of course, a tribute to the best in daytime.
For the second year in a row, the daytime television community flocked to Las Vegas to celebrate its outstanding achievements. The ceremony, which was broadcast live from the Las Vegas Hilton on CBS, meshed together the best of Las Vegas -- Cirque du Soleil's
Viva Elvis, legendary singer Gladys Knight, and hip hop dance crew Jabbawockeez -- and the best of daytime.
The ceremony was also complete with tributes to some of daytime's best-known names. Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey was honored with the Chairman's Crystal Pillar Award, an award designed to recognize her long television career. Winfrey's self-titled talk show ended its 25-year run in May.
Game show hosts Pat Sajak and Alex Trebek were the recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award. Sajak has hosted
Wheel of Fortune for 30 years, selling a countless number of vowels and giving away millions of dollars. Trebek, meanwhile, has sought questions from
Jeopardy! contestants for 27 years. Trebek has also hosted other programs, including
Classic Concentration and
Battle Stars.
"We're part of Americana," Trebek said backstage, with Sajak alongside him. "People, when they hear the themes to
Wheel and
Jeopardy!, they know immediately what the reference is. Part of that is because we've been on for so long. We hope it will continue for as long as we want to do it."
There was also an on-air tribute to All My Children's
Susan Lucci, who has played the inimitable Erica Kane for 41 years. The tribute featured her daughter, actress
Liza Huber, and
Shemar Moore (ex-Malcolm Winters, The Young and the Restless), the man who'd announced in 1999 that "the streak" was over and that Lucci had finally won her elusive Daytime Emmy.
Of course, there were also a handful of awards given out during the two-hour ceremony, including a surprise or two, and a rare "threepeat" win in the Outstanding Drama Series category.
» PART TWO: SUPPORTING ACTOR AND ACTRESS
38th Annual Daytime Emmys
