The annual Emmy Awards telecast’s celebration of the previous year’s best performances and programs wouldn’t be complete without a tribute to those who are no longer with us. Hence why actor Henry Winkler opened this year’s “In Memoriam” segment with several personal remarks about his friend and colleague, the great Garry Marshall, before introducing the video. Accompanied by Tori Kelly’s soulful cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” the montage namedropped everyone from Marshall and fellow Garry, Garry Shandling, to film stars, musicians, and behind the scenes personnel whose creative output included television.
Veteran television performers like Doris Roberts of Everybody Loves Raymond fame, and character actors Abe Vigoda and Jon Polito made the list. As did big honorable mentions like Robert Loggia, Anton Yelchin, Alan Rickman, David Bowie and Prince — entertainers who, while their most memorable contributions weren’t always to be found on television, appeared often enough of the medium to earn the Television Academy’s respect.
Shandling scored his own private memorial video earlier in the telecast, when fellow Larry Sanders Show alum Jeffrey Tambor addressed the Microsoft Theater crowd in Los Angeles. According to the Transparent actor, Shandling was “a legendary, standup fantastic Emmys host, a great, real late-night host, a great fake late-night host, [and] a great fake late-night host who David Duchovny was sexually attracted to.”
