A Letter From The Editor
I have a lot of great memories linked
to watching the Oscars. Growing up,
watching the Oscars was a big deal at
our house.
My mother would pop popcorn,
prepare finger foods and we’d camp out
in front of the television and vote on
the categories, on best evening gowns,
worst evening gowns and best/funniest
presenters and who was the best host —
ever. Johnny Carson got my dad’s vote,
and since he’s been gone a long, long
time (so has Carson, for that matter), I
think Carson gets it.
Good or bad — watching the Oscars was big fun.
It was almost more fun when the
Academy made what my father called
“lame-brained choices,” but mostly he
called it “80 Days — all over again.”
Daddy never quite got over the fact
that in 1956 The Searchers was
completely ignored by the Academy, not
even nominated for Best Picture. Instead,
Around the World In 80 Days won
Best Picture, which was pronounced
“silliness” by him. Everyone knows that
The Searchers was the best movie in the
history of movies and that John Wayne
deserved the Best Actor Award. The only
other movie he would have accepted as
Best Picture material was Giant. None
of that happened, of course, and my
father was convinced that the Academy
was made up of a bunch of “dim-wits.”
I noticed long ago that in my father’s
eyes movies about Texas were always
superior to those that were about some
place like New York or New Jersey, unless they were war movies that involved
Texans winning — those counted too.
But, more often than not, the “dimwits” won out.
Example II: In 1968, the Best Song
Award went to Talk To The Animals,
beating out The Look Of Love. Not
good. To my father it was another “dim-
witted 80 Days Moment.”
Silly, disrespectful antics.
My dad had the theory that actors
in particular and the movie industry in
general had an odd deep-seated embarrassment about their field. “They’re
grown-ups making a living by pretending to be someone else,” he once said.
“That’s sort of embarrassing. When
they get an award for being the best at
pretending to be someone else, they
have to act like they don’t really care
about the award. They have to make it
about something else like a charity or a
cause.”
Remember when Marlon Brando
sent a 26-year-old actress/Native-American activist named Sacheen Littlefeather (a.k.a. Marie Cruz) to accept,
or should I say decline, his Best Actor
Oscar honor for his performance in
The Godfather?
“Real men do their own dirty work,”
my father said. “Don’t send a little girl
to do your dirty work for you.”
At the time, about 200 Native-American
protesters were in the midst of a protest/
mischief-making stint at Wounded
Knee. Just before the Oscar ceremony
began, Littlefeather was backstage when
she was approached by the show’s
producer and asked why she was there.
She told him that Brando had given her
a 15-page statement to read if he won
the best actor award. The producer
told Littlefeather that if she talked at the
microphone for more than 60 seconds
he would have her arrested.
She gave a brief, improvised speech
and left the stage. Roger Moore went
home with Brando’s Oscar and kept it
until the Academy sent an armed guard
to Moore’s home to retrieve it. Easy
come. Easy go. Despite the remarks and
reactions to the whole Brando “protest,” Littlefeather seemed to come out
looking rather well. She was beautiful and gracious. Then, a few months
later, when her nude photos appeared
in Playboy, the lovely, gracious activist was seen as just another wannabe
actress who took her clothes off for
money. She later said that the photos
were shot a year earlier, but Playboy
had decided not to use them. But, when
she appeared on the Oscars, Playboy had
changed its mind and published them.
Her name still comes up in conversation
now and then. It goes to show you my
mother was correct when she said, “It’s
never a good idea to appear nude in
front of a camera — ever.”
Whatever. It was all a “Silly, disrespectful, antic.”
A stunt.
A year later a naked man streaked
past David Niven as the always-dapper
Englishman attempted to introduce Elizabeth Taylor during the 1974 ceremony. Niven’s quip was unforgettable. He
said, “The only laugh that man will ever
get comes when he strips off his clothes
and shows off his shortcomings.” That’s
funny. I don’t care who you are.
“It’s staged, a stunt,” Daddy said.
Actually, years later it came out that the
Oscars’ streaker was indeed a stunt, a
funny stunt, but a stunt just the same.
Daddy was pretty perceptive.
The Oscars are no longer a big
event for my family. My adorable
parents have both been gone for years
now, the family is scattered around the
Metroplex and, because I get up at an
obscenely early hour on Mondays to
write for the NewsBlast, having friends
over for an Oscar Watch Party isn’t
practical.
This year I watched the Oscars with
my lifetime boyfriend and HazMat, the
Wonder Dog — both snoring from the
sofa across the room — and my two
Jack-O-Weenies snuggled next to me
on a wing chair. Oscars are not a big
deal to me anymore. But I still watch.
The only Best Picture nominated movies I’d seen were Brooklyn and Bridge
Of Spies. I’d followed the The Boston
Globe story that inspired Spotlight but
had not watched the movie. Since it was
about a group of courageous journalists, I
was sort of rooting for it.
I couldn’t help but miss the kind
of Oscar watching event that we used
to have as a family, but then I miss the
way we were all together for almost
everything back then.
Throughout the “OscarsSoWhite”
rhetoric, I had the feeling that I was
watching a group of vain, augmented,
self-absorbed people &WFV