The biggest little man in Hollywood

Who’s going to win?

That’s not as hard to predict as it might seem. A computer program developed by the ACNielsen EDI company has analyzed a dozen statistical measures from past races, and found distinct patterns in the Academy’s choices. In the Best Picture category, period pieces tend to beat those set in contemporary times, dramas fare better than comedies, and films released after September win far more frequently than those further back in the voters’ memories. A film is also more likely to win if its director and actors are nominated too. Based on its complex formula, the computer predicts that A Beautiful Mind will edge out The Lord of the Rings. In the acting races, three nominees this year—Russell Crowe, Sean Penn, and Judi Dench—benefit from the Academy’s soft spot for characters with mental disabilities. The worst way to make picks for the office pool: choosing the most deserving nominees.

The best nominees don’t win?

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Generally, artistic merit takes a backseat to popularity and politics. Three of the greatest directors of all time—Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Martin Scorsese—have never won an Oscar. Cary Grant was shut out his entire career. In 1942, Citizen Kane competed against The Maltese Falcon for Best Picture; the Academy gave the Oscar to How Green Was My Valley. In 1977, Rocky defeated Taxi Driver, Network, and All the President’s Men. Strange oversights have occurred in every category. In 1938, a tune called “Sweet Leilani” was named Best Original Song. It beat George and Ira Gershwin’s “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” That same year, the Gershwins’ “A Foggy Day” and “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” were not even nominated. Neither was “In the Still of the Night,” by Cole Porter.

Who’s responsible for these choices?

The 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It’s an invitation-only club consisting of actors, writers, studio executives, technicians, musicians, public-relations people, and others on the periphery of moviemaking. The Academy was founded by MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer in 1927 as a way to improve Hollywood’s image in Washington and to give the studios leverage over unions. Awards were an afterthought, first handed out in a five-minute ceremony in 1929. Officially called the Academy Award of Merit, Oscar supposedly got its nickname from an Academy librarian who took one look at the statuette and exclaimed, “Gee! He looks just like my uncle Oscar!”

Is the voting political?

As political as any presidential election. To help the Academy members make their selections, the studios inundate them with trade-industry advertising, special videos and DVDs “for your consideration,” and various film-related freebies. Studios spend millions flogging their films—sometimes more than they spend on the films themselves. Miramax, notorious for its profligate Oscar campaigning, pushed In the Bedroom with gimmicks—like a 24-page insert in Variety—costing far more than the movie’s $1.7 million budget. Insiders estimate that some studios spent $10 million to $15 million just to get a film nominated this year, double what a successful effort cost two years ago. The Academy has a 21-page list of guidelines “to allow all eligible films to be considered on as level a playing field as possible,” but violators are never seriously punished.

Why do they want to win so badly?

Prestige, of course. Oscars also make it easier to attract big names to future projects. But the bottom line of the campaigning is the bottom line: A nomination for a small film can double its box office take, a Best Picture award often means an additional $30 million, and slapping the word “winner” on a video box is worth years of rentals.

So everyone covets an Oscar?

Not everyone. “Nothing would disgust me more, morally, than receiving an Oscar,” said twice-nominated writer-director Luis Buñuel. “I wouldn’t have it in my home.” Woody Allen has never deigned to attend the ceremony. The first person to refuse an Oscar was screenwriter Dudley Nichols, who physically returned his 1935 award twice over a labor dispute. Screenwriter Robert Towne was so upset by changes to his script for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan that he gave the credit to his dog, P.H. Vazak, who subsequently became the first canine ever nominated for an Academy Award. George C. Scott refused his award for Patton, calling the ceremonies “a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons.”

Was he right?

No. The ceremony typically lasts three to four hours. The longest ever was the 2000 awards show, which clocked in at 4 hours, 11 minutes. The director blamed the size of the stage, which he said took too long for each winner and presenter to cross. For the losers, who must smile gamely while a billion or so people study their faces for evidence of envy, the show seems even longer. At the 1934 ceremony, director Frank Capra—nominated for Lady for a Day—heard the presenter shout, “Come and get it, Frank!“ and bounded for the podium. Then the spotlight fixed on Frank Lloyd, director of Cavalcade. Amid cries of “Sit down!” and “Get out of the way,” Capra made his way back to his seat, on what he later described as “the longest, saddest, most shattering walk of my life.”

Indian and the streaker

The most memorable Oscar moments are the most unexpected. When Marlon Brando won Best Actor for his role in The Godfather in 1973, he sent a young Apache woman named Sacheen Littlefeather to refuse the award on his behalf, in protest of the portrayal of American Indians in Hollywood and the government siege of the Indian village of Wounded Knee. Later, a reporter discovered that Littlefeather was actually a Mexican actress named Maria Cruz, who had recently won an award of her own: Miss Vampire USA. After that, Littlefeather posed nude for Playboy. Littlefeather, now 55, says she is half Indian and “not a fraud.” She remains a professional activist, recently protesting Indian team mascots. In 1974, amid the “streaking” craze, 33-year-old Robert Opal ran naked across the stage flashing a peace sign. “The only laugh that man will probably ever get,” said quick-witted co-host David Niven, is for “showing his shortcomings.” Opal tried unsuccessfully to parlay his fame into a stand-up comedy career, and was once hired to streak at a party for dancer Rudolf Nureyev and composer Marvin Hamlisch. In 1979, he was shot and killed during a robbery at his San Francisco sex shop.