Tamara Tunie Makes Daytime Emmy History With Her ‘Beyond The Gates’ Win
Tamara Tunie came back to daytime television, and the industry gave her a trophy for it. The actress won Outstanding Lead Performance in a Daytime Drama Series at the 53rd Daytime Emmy Awards on October 30th at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. She earned the honor for playing Anita Williams Dupree on CBS’s “Beyond the Gates,” according to Black Enterprise.
The win places Tamara in rare company. She is the second Black actress to take the category, following Mishael Morgan’s historic victory in 2022. Her win came at the end of a night that also celebrated several Black women in daytime television.
The moment carries extra weight because of Tamara’s history with the genre. She made her daytime debut in 1987 on “As the World Turns” and left the show in 2009, a year before it ended, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
Her win comes after 17 years away from soaps. “This is the best welcome back to daytime ever,” she said.
She also credited the Black actresses who came before her, saying she feels them with her when she stands on stage.
“Beyond the Gates” is a milestone in itself. The modern soap, which centers on an affluent Black family, debuted on CBS last year. According to the AJC, it features the first primarily Black cast on a network soap since “Generations” in the 1990s and is the first new network soap since 1999. In its first year of eligibility, the show earned 15 nominations and won four awards.
Tamara’s victory was one of several wins for Black women at the ceremony. Tracee Ellis Ross won her first Emmy, in the travel and adventure category, for her Roku series “Solo Traveling with Tracee Ellis Ross.” The honor arrived on her 54th birthday.
Keke Palmer won her first Daytime Emmy and third career Emmy for the short-form program “Glam Through the Ages,” which she co-created and executive produced through her company KeyTV. Star Jones earned her first Daytime Emmy after 14 career nominations, sharing the Outstanding Daytime Personality, Daily, award with bailiff Corey Jovan for “Divorce Court.”
Taken together, the wins show how far Black women’s influence has expanded in daytime. They appear on screen, and they also create, produce, and lead programming behind it. Tamara’s win is the clearest example of why that visibility matters. A veteran actress returned to a genre she helped shape, in a show built around a Black family, and the industry’s top daytime honor followed.
For anyone who watched Tamara on “As the World Turns” or on prime time, her win is also a reminder that a long career can have a second chapter. Seventeen years after leaving soaps, she walked back in and left with a trophy.
