‘Billy Elliot’ actors aren’t the first to win a joint Tony award

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The three teenagers who share the title role in ‘Billy Elliot, the Musical’ collectively won a Tony Award tonight for best actor in a musical, but they aren’t the first performers to win a joint Tony.

Tom O’Neil’s Gold Derby blog refers us to the year 1975, when John Kani and Winston Ntshona won best actor in a play for ‘Sizwe Banzi Is Dead’ and ‘The Island,’ two one-acts in which they appeared together.

In at least two other occasions, actors were jointly nominated for a Tony Award but lost.

In 1966, Donal Donnelly and Patrick Bedford, who played the private and public versions of the same character in ‘Philadelphia Here I Come,’ lost their joint nomination for best actor in a play to Hal Holbrook in his one-man show ‘Mark Twain Tonight.’

And in 1998, Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley shared a nomination for best actress in a musical for playing real-life Siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton.

‘Billy Elliot’ stars Trent Kowalik, David Alvarez and Kiril Kulish, who rotate evenings in the lead role.

-- David Ng

Photo: From left, David Alvarez, Kiril Kulish and Trent Kowalik. Credit: Bryan Bedder / Getty Images