"Grey's Anatomy" star Katherine Heigl will return to the hit ABC medical drama next season. The May clifhanger ending had left her character Izzie in limbo as she battled brain cancer. And the prognosis for the actress seemed uncertain as well following the furor she had set off last June when she refused to submit her name for Emmy consideration.

It was Gold Derby that noticed Katherine Heigl's name missing from the initial list of 2008 contenders. When we inquired as to why, Heigl's response to us triggered a media uproar: "I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination." After that brouhaha, there was talk that her character could be killed off this season.

Heigl liked this story line well enough to put her name forward for the Emmys this year. With the nominating process revised to eliminate the juried runoff, Heigl needs to win over voters no doubt rankled by her diva behavior last year to rank high enough in the popular vote to land a nod.

That Heigl decided to stay in the supporting race is illuminating. After all, there are plenty of Emmy precedents to legitimize a move up to lead actress by a supporting winner without any noticeable increase in screen time.

Back in 1988, Patricia Wettig won supporting actress in a drama series for her role as a long-suffering wife on the first season of "thirtysomething." She was not an Emmy nominee the next year, but in Season 3, her character was confronted with cancer and Wettig won the first of two successive lead actress Emmys for this ensemble drama.

In 1995, Julianna Margulies took home the supporting Emmy for her work on the first season of the smash hit "ER." She stayed in supporting the following year but moved up to lead for her last four seasons on the show — she never won another Emmy.