Awards elude ‘Housewives’ actress Eva Longoria

She’s the breakout beauty of ABC’s “Desperate Housewives.”

She has landed a L’Oreal contract, the No. 1 position on Maxim’s Hot 100 list, a role in the 2006 thriller “The Sentinel” and the covers of multiple magazines.

But when it comes to acting awards, Eva Longoria can’t get a break.

Of the 15 Emmy nominations her show earned last week (including honors for best comedy actress for Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman), Longoria was the most glaring omission.

At the Sept. 18 ceremony, Longoria, 30, will have to assume that same “team player” smile she donned at January’s Golden Globe Awards, where her fortysomething co-stars first competed without her.

Adding salt to her wound this time: Actresses Lupe Ontiveros (who played Longoria’s mother-in-law) and Kathryn Joosten (neighbor Mrs. McClusky) earned Emmy nominations for their guest-starring roles.

“I don’t know if it’s because she’s the youngest or so incredibly gorgeous or because the other women have been kicking around for longer and have a lot of (voting) friends in the industry who are so happy they’ve caught a second wave,” says series creator Marc Cherry, who notes that Kristin Davis had to wait until the final season of “Sex and the City” to join her multiple-Emmy-nominated co-stars.

“I’d bet Eva was the sixth nominee, just a couple of votes behind someone else,” Cherry says. (The other nominees: Patricia Heaton of “Everybody Loves Raymond” and Jane Kaczmarek of “Malcolm in the Middle.”)

Awards analyst Tom O’Neil of GoldDerby.com says Cherry might be responsible for the Emmy snubs of Longoria and supporting actress Nicollette Sheridan by writing them as bed-hopping hussies.

“Ironically, hedonist Hollywood may be making the floozies pay for their sins,” O’Neil says.

Also, he adds of Longoria, “Her role has less emotional depth than (the others).”

To that, Cherry promises something monumental for her character, Gabrielle.

“I’m going to work a little harder this (upcoming) season to make sure she has some fantastic scenes just to try to fix this horrendous error,” he vows.

O’Neil and Cherry say Longoria might have had a better shot had she submitted herself in the supporting-actress category. But, Cherry says, “There still would have been no guarantee.”

Longoria will at least be spared having to take part in the next potentially tricky phase of the competition: submitting an entire episode. The “Housewives” women will have to choose carefully, trying to showcase their own talents more than their competitors.

Says O’Neil: “If Felicity Huffman submits a tape with really good Marcia Cross scenes, she could be in trouble.”