Oscar briefs
| • | Producing the oscars |
| • | Kahalu'u resident treasures 'Gone With the Wind' Oscar |
| • | Nominees for key Academy Awards |
Associated Press
TV welcomes Oscars
In 1953, the Academy Awards were televised for the first time. "The Greatest Show On Earth" was named best picture. Gary Cooper won the best-actor award for "High Noon." Shirley Booth won for best actress for "Come Back, Little Sheba."
Stylist of the stars
Los Angeles-based stylist Phillip Bloch has this motto: Be prepared for anything.
On the morning of the Oscars telecast, when he makes his rounds to the homes of the actresses he dresses, he carries an awards-show kit that includes footless, slimming body stockings; strapless bras and adhesive bras; nude-colored underwear; double-stick tape; safety pins; and a needle and thread.
Bloch will be helping Halle Berry get ready for tonight's ceremony, which will take place at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. The show will air live on ABC.
Berry, who is a best-actress nominee for her role in "Monster's Ball," is easy to work with because she has her own fashion sense, Bloch said.
He sees their hunt for the perfect Oscar dress as a collaboration.
"Luckily, we like the same things," he said.
Secrets of accountants
From a corner office on the 50th floor of the PricewaterhouseCoopers building in downtown Los Angeles, Gregory Garrison guards knowledge only he and fellow accountant Rick Rosas have. They are the only two who know the outcome of the Oscar race in advance.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has tallied the Oscar ballots for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences every year for the past 70 years. Consequently, it takes its role in this event very seriously. There is no Oscar betting pool at the office, no "Russell Crowe vs. Ben Kingsley" gossip around the water cooler. And definitely no loose lips.
Accountants, weary from tax season, covet the appointments to the elite five-member preliminary ballot-counting team.
"One of the ways we work to keep this thing a secret — in a town with very few secrets — is we don't get many people involved," Garrison said.
Once all 6,000 ballots have arrived, they're stacked in a conference room and divided among the young staffers, who are forbidden from talking to one another. "We also put the fear of God into them before they start," Garrison said.
From then on, it's just Garrison and Rosas. Their final tally determines the winners. "It's easy," Garrison said. "You just add them up, and whoever has the most votes wins."
On Friday, Garrison and Rosas were stuffing envelopes. The envelopes, that is, that will be handed to award presenters during the show.
Yesterday, the two accountants were memorizing the winners' names — just in case the envelopes didn't make it to the show. Then the envelopes are locked in a safe at the PricewaterhouseCoopers offices.
Today, Garrison and Rosas travel separately to the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, each with an armed guard and a briefcase full of Oscar winners.
Once inside the theater, they are posted on either side of the stage, handing out envelopes to award presenters throughout the show.
"It's a lot of fun," Garrison said. "It's different than what we do the rest of the year. You're part of the biggest party in town."
