The 12th Emmy Awards, later referred to as the 12th Primetime Emmy Awards, were held on June 20, 1960 to honor the best in television of the year. The ceremony was held at the NBC Studio, in Burbank

Burbank, California

Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....

. It was hosted by Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...

. There were no awards given out in the categories of lead actor in comedy series, lead actress in a drama series or for supporting roles. All nominations are listed, with winners in bold and series' networks are in parentheses.

Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Drama

• The DuPont Show of the Month (CBS)
• The Moon and Sixpence
  The Moon and Sixpence
  The Moon and Sixpence is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, told in episodic form by the first-person narrator as a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character, Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English stockbroker who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his desire...
  
  (NBC)
• Playhouse 90
  Playhouse 90
  Playhouse 90 is an American television anthology series that was telecast on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. It originated from CBS Television City in Los Angeles, California...
  
  (CBS)
• Startime (NBC)
• The Untouchables
  The Untouchables (1959 TV series)
  The Untouchables is an American crime drama that ran from 1959 to 1963 on ABC. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized the experiences of Eliot Ness, a real-life Prohibition agent, as he fought crime in Chicago during the 1930s with the help of a...
  
  (ABC)

Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Humor

• The Art Carney Special
  Art Carney
  Arthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. He is best known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners....
  
  (NBC)
• Father Knows Best
  Father Knows Best
  Father Knows Best is an American radio and television comedy series which portrayed a middle class family life in the Midwest. It was created by writer Ed James in the 1940s.-Radio:...
  
  (CBS)
• The Jack Benny Program
  The Jack Benny Program
  The Jack Benny Program, starring Jack Benny, is a radio-TV comedy series that ran for more than three decades and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th-century American comedy.-Cast:*Jack Benny - Himself...
  
  (CBS)
• Make Room for Daddy (CBS)
• The Red Skelton Show
  The Red Skelton Show
  The Red Skelton Show is an American variety show that was a television staple for two decades, from 1951 to 1971. It was second to Gunsmoke and third to The Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings during that time. Skelton, who had previously been a radio star, had appeared in several motion pictures as...
  
  (CBS)

Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Variety

• CBS Television News (CBS)
• Chet Huntley Reporting
  Chet Huntley
  Chester Robert "Chet" Huntley was an American television newscaster, best known for co-anchoring NBC's evening news program, The Huntley-Brinkley Report, for 14 years beginning in 1956.-Early life:...
  
  (CBS)
• The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
  The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
  The Dinah Shore Chevy Show is an American variety series hosted by Dinah Shore, and broadcast on NBC from October 1956 to June 1963. The series was sponsored by the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors and its theme song, sung by Shore, was "See the U.S.A...
  
  (NBC)
• The Fabulous Fifties (CBS)
• The Garry Moore Show
  The Garry Moore Show
  The Garry Moore Show is the name for several separate American variety series on the CBS television network in the 1950s and 1960s. Hosted by experienced radio performer, Garry Moore, the series helped launch the careers of many comedic talents, such as Don Adams, George Gobel, Carol Burnett, Don...
  
  (CBS)
• The Revlon Revue (CBS)
• Another Evening with Fred Astaire
  An Evening With Fred Astaire
  An Evening with Fred Astaire is a one-hour live television special starring Fred Astaire, broadcast on NBC on October 17, 1958. It was highly successful, winning nine Emmy awards and spawning three further specials, and technically innovative, as it was one of the first major television shows to be...
  
  (NBC)

Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Children's Programming

• Captain Kangaroo
  Captain Kangaroo
  Captain Kangaroo is a children's television series which aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for nearly 30 years, from October 3, 1955 until December 8, 1984, making it the longest-running children's television program of its day...
  
  (CBS)
• The Huckleberry Hound Show (Syndicated)
• Lassie
  Lassie
  Lassie is a fictional collie dog character created by Eric Knight in a short story expanded to novel length called Lassie Come-Home. Published in 1940, the novel was filmed by MGM in 1943 as Lassie Come Home with a dog named Pal playing Lassie. Pal then appeared with the stage name "Lassie" in six...
  
  (CBS)
• The Quick Draw McGraw Show (Syndicated)
• Watch Mr. Wizard
  Watch Mr. Wizard
  Mr. Wizard's World, a faster-paced version of the show developed by Don Herbert, was shown three times a week on the then rising kids cable channel Nickelodeon. Once again, the revival was produced in Canada . The show produced 78 episodes from 1983 onwards, and continued to run thereafter as...
  
  (NBC)

Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Public Service

• CBS Reports
  CBS Reports
  CBS Reports is the umbrella title used for documentaries by CBS News which aired starting in 1959 through the 1990s. The series sometimes aired as a wheel series rotating with 60 Minutes , as a series of its own or as specials. The program aired as a constant series from 1959 to 1971...
  
  (CBS)
• Meet the Press
  Meet the Press
  Meet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview program produced by NBC. It is the longest-running television series in American broadcasting history, despite bearing little resemblance to the original format of the program seen in its television debut on November 6, 1947. It has been...
  
  (NBC)
• The Twentieth Century (CBS)

Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of News

• The Huntley-Brinkley Report (NBC)

Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Series

• Richard Boone
  Richard Boone
  Richard Allen Boone was an American actor who starred in over 50 films and was notable for his roles in Westerns and for starring in the TV series Have Gun – Will Travel.-Early life:...
  
  for Have Gun - Will Travel
• Raymond Burr
  Raymond Burr
  Raymond William Stacey Burr was a Canadian actor, primarily known for his title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside. His early acting career included roles on Broadway, radio, television and in film, usually as the villain...
  
  for Perry Mason
  Perry Mason
  Perry Mason is a fictional character, a defense attorney who was the main character in works of detective fiction authored by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason was featured in more than 80 novels and short stories, most of which had a plot involving his client's murder trial...
  
  
• Robert Stack
  Robert Stack
  Robert Stack was an American actor. In addition to acting in more than 40 films, he was the star of the 1959-1963 ABC television series The Untouchables and later served as the host of Unsolved Mysteries.-Early life:...
  
  for The Untouchables
  The Untouchables (1959 TV series)
  The Untouchables is an American crime drama that ran from 1959 to 1963 on ABC. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized the experiences of Eliot Ness, a real-life Prohibition agent, as he fought crime in Chicago during the 1930s with the help of a...
  
  

Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Series

• Donna Reed
  Donna Reed
  Donna Reed was an American film and television actress.With appearances in over 40 films, Reed received the 1953 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the tramp Lorene in the war drama From Here to Eternity. She is also noted for her role in the perennial Christmas...
  
  for The Donna Reed Show
  The Donna Reed Show
  The Donna Reed Show is an American sitcom starring Donna Reed as the upper middle class housewife Donna Stone. Carl Betz appears as her pediatrician husband Alex, and Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen as their teenage children Mary and Jeff. The show originally aired on ABC at 10 pm from September...
  
  
• Loretta Young
  Loretta Young
  Loretta Young was an American actress. Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953...
  
  for Letter to Loretta
• Jane Wyatt
  Jane Wyatt
  Jane Waddington Wyatt was an American actress perhaps best known for her role as the housewife and mother on the television comedy Father Knows Best, and as Amanda Grayson, the human mother of Spock on the science fiction television series Star Trek...
  
  for Father Knows Best
  Father Knows Best
  Father Knows Best is an American radio and television comedy series which portrayed a middle class family life in the Midwest. It was created by writer Ed James in the 1940s.-Radio:...
  
  

Outstanding Single Performance by an Actor

• Lee J. Cobb
  Lee J. Cobb
  Lee J. Cobb was an American actor. He is best known for his performance in 12 Angry Men his Academy Award-nominated performance in On the Waterfront and one of his last films, The Exorcist...
  
  for Playhouse 90
  Playhouse 90
  Playhouse 90 is an American television anthology series that was telecast on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. It originated from CBS Television City in Los Angeles, California...
  
  
• Alec Guinness
  Alec Guinness
  Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
  
  for The Wicked Scheme of Jebal Deeks
• Laurence Olivier
  Laurence Olivier
  Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
  
  for The Moon and Sixpence
  The Moon and Sixpence
  The Moon and Sixpence is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, told in episodic form by the first-person narrator as a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character, Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English stockbroker who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his desire...
  
  

Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress

• Ingrid Bergman
  Ingrid Bergman
  Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
  
  for Startime
• Julie Harris
  Julie Harris
  Julia Ann "Julie" Harris is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame...
  
  for The DuPont Show of the Month