On Hill Street Blues she received seven Emmy nominations (one for each season of the show) for best actress, more than any other member of the cast. She won only once in 1985 and her acceptance speech was unintentionally comical. Thinking that the time of the announcement of the winner for her category wasn't due, she stepped out to go to the bathroom. Whether she was delayed or the award was announced sooner than expected, she was late getting back to the auditorium. A "seat filler", someone who is employed by the Academy to temporarily fill someone's seat so that there won't be a lot empty seats shown on TV, took advantage of the moment and ran up on stage to accept her award on her behalf. At that moment she was heading down the aisle waving her arms to stop him as they went to commercial (as it turned out, the TV camera caught her trying to get their attention). After they returned from the commercial break she was allowed to give her own acceptance speech.