Keneally Has Faith in Schindler, Spielberg : Oscars: The author is nervous on the big night. But the UCI professor believes the film, based on a ‘remarkable tale,’ is destined to become a classic.

Resplendent in a new custom tuxedo and gold UCI cuff links, “Schindler’s List” author Thomas Keneally stepped out of the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills on Monday night to take his place in Tinseltown history.

Attending the 66th annual Academy Awards with his wife, Judy, the head of UC Irvine’s Graduate Program in Writing called the night “the most important thing that ever happened to Steven Spielberg.”

“When he walks up to get his award, I’ll be thinking: You deserve this because you made what I consider to be almost certainly a classic of the cinema,” the Australian-born Keneally said. “And they don’t come along too often--about as rarely as a literary classic.

“Now the cycle is complete,” he said. “Those people delivered by Schindler in 1945 don’t have to worry any further, particularly dear old Poldek (the Schindler survivor who gave the book idea to Keneally) because Poldek was saved by Oskar Schindler and has, in a way, through pure determination, given Oskar immortality.”

Before the festivities, Keneally sipped champagne in his suite at the Four Seasons, where Oscar nominees Liam Neeson, Daniel Day-Lewis and Ralph Fiennes were also holed up, and confessed to being nervous about the outcome of the Oscars.

“I’ve got mixed feelings. There’s no way in the world (Spielberg) can lose,” he said. “The only doubts I have are associated with the fact that they said the Titanic couldn’t sink. This year, ‘Schindler’s List’ is the Titanic and ‘The Piano’ and ‘In the Name of the Father’ are the icebergs.”

When Keneally wrote the book in 1982, he had a “glimmering” that it might be Oscar material.

“I thought this story, which I hadn’t made up, was one of the great moral fables of the century,” he said. “I was really convinced it was a significant and remarkable tale.”

As Keneally spoke, his daughter, Jane, 26, sized up her formally dressed father. With a nod of approval and a huge smile, she said, “I think people are really going to find it difficult to tell the difference between Dad and Paul Newman tonight.”

Her father chuckled his gratitude and fingered the tiny gold pin on his lapel. That was one piece of jewelry Newman wouldn’t be wearing. “It’s the Order of Australia pin,” Keneally said.

“Oh yes, we’ve got our family and our country going with us to the Oscars,” said Judy Keneally. “I’m wearing a dear old silver ring that Tom gave me when our two girls were small. I’m wearing that for Jane because she couldn’t get a ticket to the Oscars. And this Dali watch is a gift from our daughter Margaret, who’s in Australia. I’m wearing that so she’ll be with us too.”

Jane Keneally, who hopes to be a movie and television producer, planned to watch the Oscar ceremonies at Spielberg’s Amblin Studios in Universal City. Dressed in a long, chocolate brown dress, she also toted a telephone.

“I’m going to call my grandmother in Australia the minute the awards are over,” she explained. “She’s going to want to know everything that happened--especially whether or not they mentioned my dad’s name.”