'Widow's Bay' dominates with 8 Emmys at early ceremony and 'The Pitt' takes 4

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Widow’s Bay” ran away with eight early Emmys for its debut season Sunday at a ceremony eight days before the main awards show and telecast, while “The Pitt” had a strong second-year showing with four of its own and Rob Reiner posthumously won an acting Emmy nearly nine months after his killing.“DTF St. Louis” won big with six awards in the limited series categories, with co-stars and veteran actors David Harbour and Linda Cardellini both becoming first-time Emmy winners.“Widow’s Bay,” the Apple TV horror comedy with Matthew Rhys as the mayor of a small New England town dealing with a centuries-old curse, won categories including cinematography, sound, music and production design.Betty Gilpin won best guest actress in a comedy for her role on the show, and read a rapid-fire comic poem as her acceptance speech. It included the lines “our business is stupid, but actors are the bomb” and “let’s all lean more toward Sam Shepard and less toward Sam Altman.”‘The Pitt’ has strong second-year showingHBO Max’s day-in-the-life medical series “The Pitt” — the year’s top nominee with 25 and the reigning best drama winner for its first season — had wins Sunday in categories including prosthetic makeup and best guest actor in a drama for 73-year-old first-time nominee Ernest Harden Jr.Harden, who won for portraying the last days of Louie Cloverfield, the emergency room’s constant presence and constantly struggling alcoholic on “The Pitt,” wept when his name was called.“I am just on cloud 25,” he said backstage at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

“I’m not saying it’s a complete surprise because ‘The Pitt’ is such a powerful show to come from, but just to get it in your hands is unreal.”Harden’s first speaking role was in the 1975 Robert Redford-Faye Dunaway thriller “Three Days of the Condor” and he had a three-season role on the sitcom “The Jeffersons” in the 1970s, but has acted for decades without awards recognition.Singer-songwriter Andrew Bird and Gavin Brivik won for original music and lyrics for a song they wrote about the character.“It's not a music-heavy show,” Bird said backstage. “But they gave us a beautiful moment with a character that we love.”Rebranding the Creative Arts Emmys and adding some star powerThe Television Academy hands out well over 100 primetime Emmys, and most of them are being presented this weekend in a pair of ceremoni…