Oscar and Bankability : Best Actor Nominees--Hot Properties Get Hotter

As a motion picture actor, comedian Robin Williams had been a box-office bust. But “Good Morning, Vietnam” has changed that dramatically.

His performance as an Armed Forces Radio deejay earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor, and the movie grossed more than $105.4 million. This makes Williams a very hot Hollywood property. The actor’s choice of scripts has expanded fivefold, according to his manager, Larry Brezner.

“Frankly, before the nomination, in terms of the scripts we were getting, it was just slowing down to a halt,” said Brezner. “Following ‘Club Paradise’ (Williams’ last film), Robin did have some fears about being offered roles in the future.”

Though Williams had some critical success with his earlier movies, “The World According to Garp” and “Moscow on the Hudson,” his role in “Good Morning, Vietnam” is the first to cash in on his quicksilver improvisational comic talent. His earlier movies were disappointments or outright duds: “Pop-eye,” “The Survivors,” “The Best of Times” and “Club Paradise.”

“Robin had never had that box-office smash,” Brezner says. “He was making films based on his reputation (including his popularity as TV’s “Mork”) and his work as a stand-up comedian. He was not a proven box-office draw on any level.”

“Now we have five scripts to read a week that are solid films for Robin. Robin Williams has become a bankable star. Not only are the studios willing to offer him movies, but they are willing to tear apart movies they have (revamping the role) to suit it to Robin’s talent.”

“It’s not easy to differentiate and say what is the result of the nomination and what is the result of the box office,” Brezner said. “In terms of studios, the latter is probably most important.”

But, Brezner adds, the nomination is key: “In terms of Robin’s self-confidence, in terms of the affirmation of the industry of his ability to perform in a motion picture, it has enormous impact. It’s a cliche to say that being nominated is enough, but in Robin’s case . . . it is.”

Michael Douglas, respected as a producer and director, had a very big year as an actor with “Wall Street” and “Fatal Attraction.” In “Wall Street” he got to play a bad guy for the first time and it paid off with a nomination.

Douglas has already won an Oscar. But it was for best producer for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” This year’s nomination places him in that elite circle of movie stars who are also regarded good actors.

“The one-two punch of ‘Fatal Attraction’ and ‘Wall Street’ shows Michael as the brilliant actor he’s always been,” said his “Fatal Attraction” producer Sherry Lansing. “But he has never had the opportunity to demonstrate that before.”

Douglas has created most of his opportunities. Enormously successful as a film producer--”Cuckoo’s Nest,” “The China Syndrome,” “Romancing the Stone,” “Jewel of the Nile”--he took lead roles in the latter two movies but played uncomplicated good guys, a type he knew well from his part in the ‘70s TV series “The Streets of San Francisco.” He has said he was initially reluctant to take acting risks because he was intimidated by the fame of father Kirk Douglas.

Douglas returns to “Fatal Attraction” producers Lansing and Stanley Jaffe for his next movie, “Black Rain,” directed by Ridley Scott. It deals with the Yakusa (Japanese organized crime), and Douglas plays an American cop called to Tokyo to solve a crime. His casting in “Black Rain” shows his bankability as an actor outside his own films. “No one else has been cast yet,” Lansing says.

Jack Nicholson is a superstar you can take to the bank. He has been nominated for an Oscar nine times and has won twice. (Only four other actors exceed or equal this achievement: Katharine Hepburn is in a lofty first place with 12 nominations and four Oscars; Bette Davis has 10 nominations and two Oscars; Laurence Olivier, 10 nominations and one Oscar, and Spencer Tracy is tied with Nicholson with nine nominations and two wins.)

Nicholson’s performance in “Ironweed” got him this year’s nomination and reaffirms his clout as one of Hollywood’s best and most bankable actors. “Does it reestablish in the public’s mind that you are still Babe Ruth? I imagine it has to,” said his agent, Sandy Bresler. “Does it take away if you don’t win? I don’t think so.”

Nicholson won the best actor Oscar for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in 1976 and a best supporting actor Oscar for “Terms of Endearment” in 1984. He began collecting nominations with “Easy Rider” in 1969, moving on to “Five Easy Pieces” (‘70), “The Last Detail” (‘73), “Chinatown” (‘74), “Reds” (‘81) and “Prizzi’s Honor” (‘85).

On the subject of success and “bankability,” Bresler says, “The question that has to be asked is not how many scripts you get, but whether the actor is self-financible: Can you finance a movie once the actor says yes?”

Nicholson would indeed have to be bankable to have launched a $23-million movie like “Ironweed,” which has grossed $10 million at the box office since last fall, according to the film’s producer, Keith Barish, losing money even before advertising, marketing and distribution costs are factored in.

When director Hector Babenco, who also made “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” brought “Ironweed” to Barish, “I agreed to make it only if Jack Nicholson was committed,” the producer said.

According to Bresler, Nicholson hasn’t decided what role he’ll take next.

Win, lose or draw on Oscar night, as one commercially successful producer sees it, “The only thing an ‘Ironweed’ nomination means for Nicholson is his price (reportedly $5 million) won’t go down.”

William Hurt is also a superstar. He hasn’t been in the business as long as Nicholson, but he has received Oscar nominations three years in a row. This year’s nomination for “Broadcast News” brings him more clout and more bankability.

His nomination for his portrayal of a lightweight anchorman comes on the heels of his nomination for “Children of a Lesser God” last year and his upset win for “Spider Woman” in 1986.

“It’s one more validation that he’s a class act, but I don’t think he needs another validation,” said one agent in town. “If he wins, they might be able to kick his (per picture) price up another half-million,” he added. Hurt’s price now is estimated to be between $2 1/2 million and $3 million.

Unlike Nicholson, who apprenticed in B movies for 15 years before “Easy Rider,” Hurt began starring in major productions almost as soon as he began making movies (“Altered States,” “Body Heat,” “The Big Chill,” “Eyewitness”). His first regular acting job was as a member of New York’s Off-Broadway Circle Repertory Company, and he still works regularly on the stage. Hurt next stars with his “Body Heat” co-star, Kathleen Turner, in “The Accidental Tourist,” directed by “Big Chill” director Lawrence Kasdan, based on the best-selling book by Anne Tyler and now shooting at Warner Bros.

Marcello Mastroianni is somewhat of an outsider to the Hollywood Deal. His nomination for his performance in “Dark Eyes” may help him for a short while, but his acting talent seems destined to remain showcased in European films. According to an attorney in the Rome law firm that represents him, Mastroianni “gets high offers (in Europe) all the time. I don’t think this nomination is going to help him a lot,” she said.

The 63-year-old Italian actor “is one of those internationally recognized stars who’s like a pillar,” said American director Mark Stouffer, who has Mastroianni in mind for a film about the illegal international trade in endangered animals.

Stouffer, who contacted Mastroianni before the nomination, said the actor’s participation is not certain, however, and he indicated that at the moment, the project’s selling point is the interest of Emilio Estevez. Mastroianni would co-star.

“I think anybody in the industry benefits from a nomination,” Stouffer said. “I could imagine that a studio might feel differently about him (Mastroianni) at least for a while because they all recognize the publicity that might come with a nomination. The whole movie business is folded into promotion and publicity, and I think the Academy Awards are all about that, in essence.”