American Cinema Awards Turns On the Star Power

The Scene: The 10th annual American Cinema Awards, which doesn’t really give awards for artistic achievements but salutes to some of the entertainment industry’s biggest names. An array of about 300 of Hollywood’s vintage and current stars gathered at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday. Whitney Houston presented the evening’s top honor, the Gloria Swanson Humanitarian Award, to her mentor, Arista Records Chief Executive Officer Clive Davis.

Who Was There: Who wasn’t there would be easier. Host Robert Wagner spent nearly an hour introducing the guests. The short list: Oscar winners Luise Rainer, Shelley Winters, Theresa Wright, Gregory Peck, Ginger Rogers, Sidney Poitier, Anthony Quinn, George Chakiris and Sir John Mills. Among others: Gale Storm, Steve Reeves, Kirk Douglas, Gene Kelly, June Allyson, Dan Aykroyd, Charles Bronson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Arlene Dahl, Gloria DeHaven, Rhonda Fleming, Anne Jeffreys, Kim Hunter, Binnie Barnes, Michael Keaton, Robert Mitchum, Robert Townsend and Marie Windsor.

The Charity: Wagner and event chairman Leo Jaffe, the former chief of Columbia Pictures, reported that between $500,000 and $600,000 was raised for the Motion Picture and Television Country Home and Hospital.

The Sentiment: Shirley Bassey’s choice of the song “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” from the musical “Sunset Boulevard,” was more fitting than she probably realized. All around the room, the feeling was that of a reunion of old friends.

Noted: Movie historian and professor Richard Brown observed: “This event dramatically rebuts the notion that the Hollywood community forgets its talent once they are no longer the flavor of the month. There are performers here tonight who have not been that flavor for four or five decades. But they are being treated here tonight as if they were just as delicious as ever.”

Other Honors: Hospital suites will be built in the names of Leslie Caron, Maureen O’Hara, Poitier, Quinn and Rogers. Also Victor Mature, who was not present, and the late Anthony Perkins. Caron, who flew in from Paris, said she was “very touched”: “It’s better even than having your hands and footprints in cement at the Chinese Theatre.”