LOS ANGELES (AP) - Fleabag jumped over stout competition early in the Emmy Awards on Sunday (Sept 22) with three awards, including best comedy actress and a writing trophy for series star and creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
She and her dark comedy about a dysfunctional woman, which also won a directing award, blocked Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus from setting a record as the most-honoured performer in Emmy history.
"Nooooo!" said a shocked-looking Waller Bridge. "Oh, my God, no. Thank you. I find acting really hard and really painful. But it's all about this," she said, her acting trophy firmly in hand.
In accepting the writing award earlier, she called the recognition proof that "a dirty, pervy, messed-up woman can make it to the Emmys".
Bill Hader won his second consecutive best comedy actor award for hitman comedy Barry.
Alex Borstein and Tony Shalhoub of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel won best supporting acting awards at the ceremony, which included early and varied messages of female empowerment after the host-less ceremony kicked off with Homer Simpson.
"I want to dedicate this to the strength of a woman, to (series creator) Amy Sherman-Palladino, to every woman on the Maisel cast and crew," Borstein said, and to her mother and grandmother.
Her grandmother survived because she was courageous enough to step out of a line that, Borstein intimated, would have led to her death at the hands of Nazi Germany.
Shalhoub added to his three Emmys which he earned for his signature role in Monk.
The awards opened without a host as promised, with an early exchange pitting Ben Stiller against Bob Newhart.
"I'm still alive," Newhart told Stiller, who introduced him as part of a wax museum comedy hall of fame that included Lucille Ball and other late legends.
The early honours for The Marvelous Mrs Maisel came on a night that could belong to HBO's Game Of Thrones.
The fantasy saga headed into the ceremony with a record 32 nominations, collecting 10 awards at last weekend's creative arts ceremony for technical and other achievements.
If the series adds three more wins on Sunday, it will break its own record for most awards in a season, 12, which it earned in 2015 and again in 2016.
