News & Politics

Local Alums Score Big at Emmys

It’s a long road from the suburbs of Washington to the red carpet of Hollywood, but several locals received television’s highest honor at this year’s Emmy Awards.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a 1979 graduate of Bethesda’s Holton-Arms School, bucked the so-called Seinfeld curse with her latest show, The New Adventures of Old Christine, taking home the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

At only 25, Georgetown Day School graduate Sam Means received a prize for Outstanding Writing as one of the scribes for The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.

“The Emmys were the first time I’d worn a tux since my senior prom,” says Means, the son of two DC attorneys, who began writing comedy for an underground paper in high school .

Greg Garcia, a graduate of Arlington’s Yorktown High, won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for the hit show he created, My Name Is Earl. Garcia, known for mentioning local areas on the program, joked during his acceptance speech that he did not wish to thank, among others, his eighth-grade social-studies teacher, who told him to “sit down and shut up because I wasn’t funny.”

Meanwhile Walt Whitman High grad Giuliana DePandi was there cruising the red carpet, interviewing stars for E! DePandi, who earned a master’s in journalism at American University, used to report on Capitol Hill.

“The difference between reporting on the Hill versus out here is that when I was in DC, I’d ask Ted Kennedy what he’s doing on a Friday night, and it never goes well,” she says. “At the Emmys, those are the best questions.”