Julie Walters and Ben Whishaw have taken the top acting prizes at the International Emmys while Sir David Frost won a lifetime achievement award. Walters won for BBC assisted suicide drama A Short Stay In Switzerland while Whishaw was honoured for the corporation's Criminal Justice series. British shows won in a further three categories at the event in New York. Winners of the awards, which celebrate TV made outside of the US, were chosen from 41 nominees from 17 countries. Sir David, 70, was presented with the Founders Award by US broadcaster Barbara Walters who told the audience at the city's Hilton hotel that he was "the best interviewer there is and he makes it look so easy". Sir David's TV career began in the early 1960s when he hosted satirical show That Was The Week That Was. He went on to become a heavyweight interviewer, both in the UK and the US, and the story of his tussles with former President Richard Nixon was made into Oscar-nominated film Frost/Nixon. Brazil first In a recorded tribute, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "This night, it's an occasion for us to look back and to thank you for what you've done, not just for Britain and British broadcasting, but for broadcasting around the world." Walters played a character with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) Walters, 59, won best actress for playing a doctor with an incurable neurological disease seeking assisted suicide at a Zurich clinic. Whishaw, 29, meanwhile, played a man accused of murdering a woman after a night of drink and drug-fuelled excess in five-part drama Criminal Justice. Neither Walters or Whishaw were at the New York awards, hosted by Graham Norton.