Unsavory news can hurt chances for an Oscar

By Andy Seiler
USA Today

Oscar hears all, sees all and knows all.

But does he listen to trash talk?

We'll find out Sunday, when the 75th Academy Awards are scheduled to air at 6:30 p.m. on ABC, despite imminent war with Iraq.

Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had to turn in their ballots by Tuesday. And much is at stake. That golden statuette can add millions of dollars to a movie's — and a movie star's — bottom line, so studios and publicists spend a lot of effort trying to control the way stories about Oscar nominees "play" in the media in the weeks leading up to the awards.

This year, there has been a heavy dose of unsavory news about Oscar nominees reported not just in the tabloids, but by legitimate media as well:

• Best-director nominee, French citizen Roman Polanski, up for his Holocaust film "The Pianist," cannot come to the United States on Oscar night. If he does, he risks arrest for a 1977 conviction of unlawful sex with a child. He fled the country that year when a sentencing deal in the case — he pleaded guilty — fell through.
• The latest uproar in the battle for an Oscar is an ad campaign engineered by Miramax, the company with 40 nominations this year. The ads quoted esteemed former academy president Robert Wise (director of "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music") as endorsing Martin Scorsese for best director for "Gangs of New York." But Wise revealed on Saturday that he didn't write the column on which the ad was based; a publicist working for Miramax did. Some outraged Oscar voters asked for their ballots to be returned so they could alter votes. The academy refused.
• In the supporting-actress race, Queen Latifah, considered a long shot to win the Oscar, was charged with drunken driving last November, shortly before "Chicago" opened in theaters. Fellow nominee Catherine Zeta-Jones, who is seen as a leading contender in the race, received negative publicity after filing suit against a British tabloid because it ran a wedding photo in which she looked "heavy." She and her husband, Michael Douglas, had sold the photo rights to a competing tabloid.
• In the tight race for best actress, which is thought to come down to "Chicago's" Rene Zellweger and "The Hours" star Nicole Kidman, Kidman has had to deny rumors that she dallied with a married co-star.

From the time a star or movie is nominated to awards night, a battalion of studio employees tirelessly explores every possible opportunity to promote the product, always arguing that the only thing that counts is the quality of the film or performance. But Oscar politics can be as cutthroat as any political campaign, and publicists have been known to test limits, given the lack of clarity in the academy's rules.

Even if Wise had written the pro-Scorsese ad (Miramax says he signed off on the ad), it would have been against academy rules. Members are not supposed to reveal their voting choices.

Rick Sands, Miramax's chief operating officer, pleads ignorance.

"We were completely unaware that this was something academy members found offensive, and since there is nothing that addresses this in the academy marketing guidelines, we certainly did not know this practice was a violation of academy rules."

Miramax points to several cases where similar ads were taken out in past years.

"It was not our intent to offend anyone," Sands says.

Some observers are flabbergasted that this issue has risen to the top of the pile, considering the case against fellow nominee Polanski.

Though these stories cause major headaches for those who control a film's publicity, others say such scandals barely register for voters.

"It is becoming more and more true that any publicity is good publicity, and I wouldn't have said that five years ago," laments Jeannette Walls, author of "Dish: How Gossip Became the News and the News Became Just Another Show" and a gossip columnist for MSNBC.com.

"Merit is all that counts," insists Marcy Granata, former top marketing executive at Miramax. "Whatever happens with your life is one thing, but show us something fantastic up on the screen and everyone will applaud for you."

Few can be found who share that view. And if it's correct, we have come a long way from 1958, when Elizabeth Taylor lost a best-actress Academy Award for "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" after she stole singer Eddie Fisher from his wife, Debbie Reynolds, says Tom O'Neil, author of "Movie Awards: The Ultimate, Unofficial Guide to the Oscars, Golden Globes, Critics, Guild and Indie Honors." Susan Hayward ("I Want to Live!") won instead.

Damien Bona, author of "Inside Oscar 2," darkly quips that, two years later, Taylor "made a good career move by almost dying from pneumonia and undergoing an emergency tracheotomy." That was when she won as best actress for "Butterfield 8," a movie that she herself called a piece of junk.

"Debbie Reynolds later said, 'Hell, even I voted for her,' " Bona notes.

Flash-forward to 2001 and the cases of Halle Berry and Russell Crowe.

Crowe was highly touted to take home last year's best-actor Oscar for "A Beautiful Mind." The movie won the Oscar for best picture, and co-star Jennifer Connelly won as best supporting actress.

But Russell himself was left eating crow after he shoved the television producer of the British Academy of Film and Television Awards when his acceptance speech was cut. Crowe eventually apologized, but too late: He lost the Oscar.

This is not to say that Denzel Washington, who won instead, did not earn the prize. He was at the top of his game and was playing against type in "Training Day." Crowe had won the year before, and it's not easy to snag two Oscars in a row. But many Hollywood observers believe that without Crowe's behavior, Washington would never have won.

It was the same year Berry came back, energetically contrite, from a much-reported hit-and-run accident to win the best-actress award for "Monster's Ball."

"People were just tired of Russell's bad behavior," says author Boze Hadleigh, whose" Celebrity Lies!" will be published next month.

O'Neil adds: "For Hollywood, it comes down to whether they're contrite afterward. Halle owned up to it, and Russell didn't. Russell Crowe refused at first to apologize, and only apologized grudgingly when the outcry became deafening."