via Flickr/Disney
Finally!
That’s what (most of) the Internet and all of St. Louis has been cheering since hometown hero Jon Hamm won the Emmy for Best Actor in a Drama for his role on AMC’s Mad Men.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch television critic Gail Pennington says it best:
It’s about damn time, indeed. Hamm was nominated 16 times before finally hearing his name called Sunday night by his friend and eight-time Emmy winner Tina Fey. Maybe it was the long wait that motivated Hamm to take an unusual route to the stage: a surprisingly graceful belly roll up from the front row.
Even with the golden statue in his hand, Hamm seemed incredulous.
“There has been a mistake clearly,” Hamm said at the beginning of his acceptance speech.
Hamm used the rest of his speech to thank, by first name only, St. Louis families who took him in after his mother’s death when he was 10 years old. Pennington identifies two of the families he mentioned: St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame inductee Ted Simmons and his wife Maryanne, and the parents of actress Sarah Clarke.
When interviewers later asked him about his St. Louis connection, Hamm said the families he thanked kept him alive after his mother died of cancer.
“Those are the people I said thank you tonight are the people who kind of got me through the times when I wasn’t in a tuxedo,” Hamm told a red carpet interviewer. “Maybe I was in a tuxedo serving drinks, but I wasn’t in a tuxedo, certainly, getting awards. Without them, I wouldn’t probably even be alive.”
Hamm’s fans in St. Louis jumped at the chance to congratulate him on his long-awaited award. Before he’d even won, Blueberry Hill posted a photo of Joe Edward’s creepy Don Draper doll.
To answer the St. Louis question, Jon Hamm went to high school at John Burroughs School, and his alma mater posted a very simple congratulations on Facebook.
Hamm’s other alma mater, the University of Missouri, where he graduated in 1993 with an English degree, seemed more excited about his win:
But no one was more excited than the St. Louis Blues. Hamm is a die-hard fan of the Blues and the St. Louis Cardinals, and he’s often caught by paparazzi sporting a Cardinals hat and Blues scarf.
Speaking of St. Louis’ sports teams, the Cardinals are already imagining how Hamm’s Emmy will look next to another statue he has.
Our favorite congratulations came from a local soccer fan who knows how to celebrate St. Louis style:
And the most annoying, most unnecessary reaction comes from Mashable, whose story lazily tossed together a few words about Hamm’s origins in St. Louis for online readers to skip over on their way to the list of seven Jon Hamm GIFs, which, we admit, are each wonderful.
Mashable’s story starts with a sarcastic attempt at being mysterious by declaring: “No one really knows where Jon Hamm came from—much like Don Draper, the character that made him famous.”
Ugh. Anyone who’s watched Mad Men knows where Don Draper came from. No spoilers, but Draper’s backstory is a powerful narrative force that helps drive the entire show. But what really toasts our ravioli is that anyone who’s a fan of Hamm, Jimmy Kimmel (see below), professional baseball, professional hockey or celebrity culture in general knows where Hamm came from: Da 'Lou.
Mashable hints at Hamm’s origins by mentioning “some mutterings about a childhood in St. Louis.” But just in case another lazy online writer is considering masking Hamm’s roots, let SLM break it down for you:
Jon Hamm is so St. Louis that he defends provel cheese on his late night TV appearances.
Jon Hamm is so St. Louis that he offered to take the fall for the Cardinals hacking scandal so his favorite team won't be punished.
Jon Hamm is so St. Louis that he told us in 2007 that, "there isn’t a place in St. Louis that you could drop me where I’d get lost."
How’s that for mutterings, Mashable?
Contact Lindsay Toler by an email at LToler@stlmag.com or on Twitter @StLouisLindsay. For more from St. Louis Magazine, subscribe or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
