03/25/2001
By Anthony Breznican / Associated Press
LOS ANGELES – Even at the Oscars, Tom Hanks was upstaged by his Cast Away co-star, Wilson.
That's the name his island-bound character gave to a volleyball that washed ashore on his desolate beach.
"Nice hats!" he said, waving to three fans in the red-carpet bleachers who donned volleyball halves on their heads.
"I've got to add sports equipment to `kids' and `dogs' on the list of who not to work with,'' Hanks said, citing an old Hollywood aphorism.
''(Wilson) got all the best lines and he's getting all the merchandising.''
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Cellist Yo-Yo Ma wore the largest fashion accessory on the Oscar red carpet.
The classical musician arrived with his $2.5-million, 266-year-old cello strapped to his back.
"I left it in the back of a taxi cab a few years ago,'' Ma said. "So now I think it's safer to keep it with me at all times.''
The large, blue case fit over his shoulders with backpack straps and was adorned with stickers from the Pokemon children's cartoon.
Ma attended the ceremony to perform a medley of music from the best original score category.
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Oscar-winning makeup artist Rick Baker said he owed a debt to Jim Carrey.
Baker, who won an Academy Award for designing Carrey's makeup in Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, said the actor suffered nearly three months of discomfort under layers of heavy, constricting latex and green paint.
"He hated it,'' Baker said backstage at the Shrine Auditorium. "He has been quite vocal about it. You've probably heard him complain about how he felt like he was buried alive.''
The actor wore the Grinch outfit for 92 days, Baker added.
"That's a lot to ask,'' he said, adding that no one but Carrey could have brought the costume to life.
"You have to overact when you have so much rubber on your face,'' Baker said. "I didn't have that worry with Jim.''
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For 30 years, Hal Kanter has supplied the jokes and bright sayings for celebrities on the Academy Awards program, and at age 82, he's not about to quit.
Kanter wrote much of the speech and presentation for Dino De Laurentiis' acceptance of the Irving G. Thalberg award on Sunday's Oscar broadcast. Such work comes easily to him. He has spent a lifetime creating jokes and dialogue for Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis and many others.
Kanter says his Oscar duties usually begin before the nominations are even announced, when he and fellow writers Buz Cohan and Rita Cash meet with show producer Gil Cates "just to talk about what the show could be and should be, and what he would like to see.''
"We meet in Gil's office and we go over the boards and we decide who's going to write best picture and so forth, and we divide it up,'' Kanter said.
"I like to write for people who have a sense of humor and aren't afraid of mine.''
Previous emcees like Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg and this year's host, Steve Martin, bring their own writers to compose the monologues and extraneous jokes. All of the show's dialogue goes through the production process.
"This show isn't written, it's rewritten,'' said Kanter.
Asked for a favorite line from the past, Kanter replied: "On one of the shows, Walter Matthau announced that the broadcast was being seen simultaneously in 300 countries. I had him say, `If my tailor in Hong Kong is watching, it still doesn't fit.'''
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This year's Oscar's ceremony is a farewell of sorts.
Homeless for seven decades, the show this year was the last at the venerable Shrine Auditorium, where the Academy Awards have taken place 10 times.
"Next year we're going back to Hollywood where the Academy Awards actually started. It's going to be great to be back home,'' said Robert Rehme, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The new home of the Oscars, the 3,300-seat Kodak Theater still under construction, is next to the historic Chinese Theatre and across the street from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, where the first Oscars were held.
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Gladiator composer Hans Zimmer said it didn't matter whether he won. He already has an Oscar for best original score for 1994's The Lion King, and his seventh nomination came with a compliment from a major fan.
"Julia Roberts told me the other day that she admired me. How do you think I'm feeling right now?'' Zimmer said, pointing to his ear-to-ear smile.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won the award for best original score Sunday night.
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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon brought actor Chow Yun-Fat to the Oscars, but the Chinese-born actor said he was happier that it took him to parts of his homeland he was never able to see.
"I spent most of my time in Beijing stuck in the city,'' he said of his younger years. "This film let me see the countryside.''
Unfortunately, he added, most of the time spent in China's forests and mountains demanded that he be attached to wires and doing kung-fu maneuvers.
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"I try to find the hero in them, even though they're misfits,'' Oscar-nominated Quills actor Geoffrey Rush said of his roles.
Rush, who won an Oscar for the 1996 film Shine, played the Marquis de Sade in Quills.
The one-time roommate of Mel Gibson, Rush described his Quills character as "a wayward personality, a handful.''
"In the letters to his wife, which are only eluded to in the film, you see a very poetic, tender and romantic brilliant mind,'' he said. In playing the role, "It was an attempt to rope together all these dimensions. It was a volcanic rage.''
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About 30 people protesting the election of President Bush stood outside the Academy Awards ceremonies, hoisting signs and shouting "Bush stole the election, Al Gore won'' and "Hail to the thief'' as a procession of limousines passed.
Bob Kunst, 58, who said he came from Miami to get out his message, held a miniature statuette and a sign reading, "Oscar for Bush, best performance in a coup d'etat.''
"We're here to say to Hollywood specifically, you were very vocal against Bush. Where are you now?'' he asked.
Jack Nava demonstrated with a sign bemoaning the few Hispanic nominees.
"I'm a Chicano and they don't have no Chicanos in the movies,'' he said. "We exist but are not on screen. If they do portray a Chicano or a Latino, they're portrayed as a drug dealer or gardener. It's demeaning.''
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Cameron Crowe said before entering the Shrine Auditorium that if he loses the Oscar for his Almost Famous original screenplay, it will hurt a little more than a normal loss.
That's because he based the 1970s rock epic partially on his life as a teen-age journalist.
"If they say I don't like your movie, it's kind of like saying I didn't like your life,'' the writer-director said. "And then they say, `By the way, it was a little too long.'''
