When the 50th Daytime Emmy Awards go down on Friday, Dec. 15 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in LA (airing live on CBS and streaming on Paramount+ at 9 p.m.), it will mark the 24th time that one beloved suds stud — “The Young and the Restless” star Peter Bergman — is up for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
Do the math: That means he has basically been nominated for half of the awards since they first took place on May 21, 1974.
“I never thought of it that way,” Bergman, 70, told The Post. “That is pretty crazy.”
That ridiculous stat has made the actor — who has played Abbott family patriarch Jack Abbott on “Y&R” since 1989 — the Meryl Streep of the Daytime Emmys. In fact, he has her 21 Oscar nominations beat by three.
“A couple of years ago, she and I were kind of neck and neck,” he said. “But yeah, I like to be in that company. That’s swell.”
Like Streep, though, Bergman has only won three times — with his last victory coming way back in 2002, when daytime legend Susan Lucci presented him with the trophy.
“I mean, obviously it’s amazing to have won three,” he said. “I always say I have room for more.”
And of course, having lost 20 times, he’s an old pro at managing awards-night nerves — and expectations.
“I always have some idea of what I want to say if they call my name, and then I just forget about it,” he said. “And whatever happens happens. The four people I’m up against are all people I know and like and really respect their work.”
One of those men he’s up against is his “Y&R” co-star Jason Thompson, who plays his younger half-brother Billy Abbott. “He’s an excellent actor,” said Bergman. “And if they call his name. I will jump to my feet.”
Bergman earned his first nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in 1983 for his role as Dr. Cliff Warner on “All My Children,” but he couldn’t attend the ceremony. “I was doing Shakespeare at the time for the New York Shakespeare Company, and I was performing that night,” he said.
But his first win came in 1991 after, following 10 years at “All My Children,” he had joined “Y&R.”
“I was pretty new to ‘The Young and the Restless,’ and my family from ‘All My Children’ were in the same audience,” he recalled. “So when they called my name, it seemed like half the audience was on their feet. It was absolutely thrilling.”
And now, just as he has been nominated for almost half of the Daytime Emmys, he has played Jack Abbott on “Y&R” — which celebrated its 50th anniversary in March — almost half of his life: 34 years.
After all these years, there are some similarities between the actor and his character.
“I am fiercely protective of my family in the same way Jack is fiercely protective of his,” said Bergman, who has two children with his wife of 38 years, Mariellen.
“And Jack is easy to tears, and Peter Bergman is all too easy to tears. It’s a genetic problem. Commercials make me cry.”
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