03/25/2001
By Manuel Mendoza / The Dallas Morning News
When Steve Martin made his first indelible impression – hosting Saturday Night Live in 1976 with an arrow through his head – no one could have imagined he'd still be around 25 years later.
How long could absurdist humor for stoned sophomores last? Martin kept moving.
Having quickly extended himself into screenwriting and stage and film acting, the former banjo-playing standup lately has evolved into a humor essayist for The New Yorker and a novelist.
Now, he's taking on a challenge that's been unforgiving in recent years: hosting the Oscars.
Since 1995, when David Letterman was viewed as having crossed the line with his open hostility toward Hollywood – Hadn't anyone seen his show? – the job has become a high-wire act.
Whoopi Goldberg was criticized for being too coarse as the 1999 mistress of ceremonies while Billy Crystal was largely toothless in his comeback stint during last year's Longest Telecast Ever.
By all reports, Martin has been prepping for Sunday's show like a wild and crazy guy. In addition to host, he's taken on the title of head writer.
"He looks like an emcee. He looks like a member of Price-Waterhouse,'' longtime collaborator Carl Reiner, who directed Martin in The Jerk, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, The Man With Two Brains and All of Me, told a gathering of TV critics shortly after his friend was named. "But what comes out of his mouth is always funny.''
How he'll be funny isn't exactly clear. Martin has declined to do interviews about his plans, saying he didn't want to spoil the show by giving away anything in advance.
Gilbert Cates, who's back as producer after Lili and Richard Zanuck's disappointing job in 2000, is hoping Martin can bring a style akin to the cool elegance of Johnny Carson, who hosted from 1979 to 1982 and again in 1984.
He's been getting a lot of other advice as well. Goldberg's no-win view may be the soundest: Stay out of the way.
"It's a tough room because no one is there to see you,'' she told Variety before her 1996 stint. "It's like opening for the biggest rock `n' roll band in the world. People don't care. They don't want to see you. They want to see the band.''
