Baldwin's phone-hack joke axed from Emmys

The Emmy awards kicked off on a controversial note overnight after a comedy routine about the British phone hacking scandal was cut from the US broadcast.

Alex Baldwin was to be part of an opening video for the ceremony, broadcast on Fox, which is owned by News Corp, the parent company of News International.

But the actor tweeted before the ceremony that the network had killed his joke about the hacking furore involving the now defunct News of the World.

Fox said it believed it was inappropriate to make light of an issue being taken very seriously by the company.

Baldwin had recorded the segment, playing a fictional president of the television academy, with show host Jane Lynch. The joke reportedly involved Baldwin on a telephone making reference to someone listening in on the conversation.

Baldwin, who was not at the Emmys because of a previous commitment to attend Tony Bennett’s birthday party in New York, asked that he be left out when Fox axed the phone-hacking joke.

He tweeted that Fox’s decision “sucks because I think it would have made them look better”.

“If I were enmeshed in a scandal where I hack the phone of families of innocent crime victims purely 4 profit, I’d want that 2 go away, 2,” he added.

Star Trek’s Mr Spock, Leonard Nimoy, was a last-minute substitute for Baldwin during the awards opening.

Some of the biggest names in showbiz took to the red carpet as the stars gathered in Los Angeles for the Emmy Awards, which is hosted this year by 'Glee' star Jane Lynch.

'Mad Men' star Christina Hendricks, Glee's Lea Michele, and British celebrities Kelly Osbourne and Cat Deeley, who is nominated for an award, were among the celebrities turning heads as the ceremony got underway.