The guest-acting races at the Emmy Awards are dominated by TV old-timers. Last year, the average age of the 22 nominees in the four categories — guest actor and actress in both comedy and drama series — was just over 62 years old. And three of the four winners were that age or older when they took to the stage last fall to accept: comedy-series guest-actor Tim Conway ("30 Rock") was 74, and comedy-series guest-actress Kathryn Joosten ("Desperate Housewives") was 68. And Glynn Turman , guest actor in a drama series ("In Treatment"), was weeks away from turning 63.

Only  Cynthia Nixon, winner of guest actress in a drama series, was well below that benchmark, at 42. Nixon won for her stand-out performance on "Law & Order: SVU" as a woman battling multiple personality disorder. That role was the polar opposite of her other Emmy Award-winning work as the always-in-control Miranda on "Sex and the City." Nixon credits that 2004 win as supporting actress in a comedy series after two unsuccessful bids to our forum posters who counseled her to switch her submission episode.

This season, "SVU" has showcased Carol Burnett in a role far removed from her usual funny ladies that we know and love. In last week's episode, the TV legend was riveting as a black widow who manipulated her young lover (Matthew Lillard) into murdering her five deadbeat husbands. Carol Burnett will certainly be a strong contender for a nomination in the guest actress in a drama series race. She won the most recent of her six Emmys for guesting as Helen Hunt's manic mother on the comedy series "Mad About You" in 1997 and picked up a nod the following year for reprising that role.

If Carol Burnett wins the drama series guest actress Emmy, she would become the third woman to have taken both awards. Not surprisingly, all-time Emmy acting champ Cloris Leachman was the first to do so. Indeed, Leachman owes four of her record eight primetime Emmys to her guest spots: first on classic sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (1975), then on the drama series "Promised Land" (1998), and most recently on the laffer "Malcolm in the Middle" (2002, 2006). And Elaine Stritch won her first Emmy for a dramatic turn on "Law & Order" (1993) and another as Alec Baldwin's big bad mama on "30 Rock" (2007).

The Envelope contributor Paul Sheehan profiles 20 of the past guest acting champs in a photo gallery. Among those featured are grand-slam awards champ Mel Brooks, who won three guest Emmys for "Mad About You" as well as Carl Reiner, who earned one of his nine Emmys for that same show. And among the women profiled are two-time Oscar champ Sally Field who won one of only two Emmys awarded to guest performers on "ER" (Ray Liotta was the other) and fifteen-time nominee Alfre Woodard who won two of her four Emmys for guest spots on legal dramas — "L.A. Law" (1986) and "The Practice" (2003).

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Photo: NBC

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