Emmys: A Friendly Affair

9:04am UK, Monday September 23, 2002

US hit comedy Friends was a big winner at the annual Emmy awards, scooping its first gong in eight years with Jennifer Aniston picking up the award for best comedy actress. 

Jennifer Aniston
(Reuters)

TV's Oscars equivalent was an upbeatoccasion after last year's sombre September 11 tribute.

British-made movie The Gathering Storm handed veteran actor Albert Finney an Emmy award for best actor.

The production, based on Winston Churchill's memoirs, also took honours for best TV movie and for writers Larry Ramin and Hugh Whitemore.

Disappointment

Music legend Sting won an award for his concert Sting In Tuscany...All This Time, but is recording a new album in Europe and did not attend.

There was disappointment for several other nominated Brits, including Kenneth Branagh, Jim Broadbent, Vanessa Redgrave and Dame Diana Rigg.

Hollywood heavyweights Tom Hank and Steven Spielberg picked up an Emmy for the wartime mini-series Band of Brothers.

Former bat biter and Black Sabbath star Ozzy Osbourne and his family won best reality show for their MTV fly-on-the-wall series.

Honoured

White House drama The West Wing won its category, but favourite Martin Sheen - who plays the US President - missed out on a best actor award.

Sheen's co-star Stockard Channing was twice lucky, taking home Emmys for her performance as the president's wife and for her supporting role in the TV movie The Matthew Shepard Story.

The networks were honoured with the Governors Award for jointly supporting a post-September 11 telethon, America: A Tribute to Heroes.

The award was presented by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who said: "Thank you on behalf of a very grateful America."