Has Oscar’s Little Cousin Arrived? : Hollywood Foreign Press awards will draw big-name stars this year and, for the first time since 1982, a prime-time slot on network TV.
The annual pre-Oscar publicity feast that is the Golden Globe Awards climbs another rung on the visibility ladder this year: For the first time since 1982 the bash gets a prime-time, major network slot in which to display its dazzling star turnout.
NBC will televise the Dick Clark-produced event Sunday night at 8 (live in the East, tape-delayed on the West Coast) from the Beverly Hilton Hotel, with Tom Hanks, Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange, Paul Reiser, Courteney Cox, Holly Hunter, Angela Bassett and Alicia Silverstone, among others, presenting awards and Tony Bennett performing.
The Golden Globes are handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., a 53-year-old organization with about 100 members, fewer than 90 of whom vote on the awards. (By contrast, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has 5,032 members eligible for Oscar voting.)
The Foreign Press Assn., whose correspondent members are said to represent publications from more than 50 nations, has a certifiably rocky history but has always managed to draw top stars.
In recent years, the value of the Golden Globes has grown not just to marketing-conscious stars and studios seeking to sway Oscar voters--those nominations don’t close until Feb. 1--but to elevision as well. After several years on cable’s TBS, NBC grabbed the event for at least three years.
To promote Sunday’s ceremonies, the network dragged everybody out of bed in the middle of the night last month to show the nominations announcement live on the “Today” show.
“We’re an important function for the movie industry, but we don’t think of ourselves as a function,” says Aida Takla-O’Reilly, a correspondent for the French newspaper Hebdos and the Egyptian publication Nisf Eldunia, as well as a professor at Cal State Los Angeles. “We think of ourselves as messengers. We facilitate communication between two cultures. If they give us what we need to be messengers of culture and the movie industry, and we give them what they need which is publicize their movies, that’s fine.”
The association has also become known for its donations to film groups and other charities--a total of $140,000 last year out of funds from Golden Globe license fees and the contributions of a Saudi prince.
The organization has survived the decades despite periods of internal turmoil, criticism from American journalists and even a Federal Communications Commission inquiry in the 1960s. At times, critics of the colorful group have questioned everything from some members’ credentials and ethics to their advancing ages and even how much food they ate at press junkets.
Even seating spats made good copy. A January, 1954, story in The Times described a dispute between Scandinavian twins Bertil and Gustav Unger and a second pair of twins at the Golden Globes: “According to witnesses, few punches were exchanged--possibly only one--before the two sets of twins were separated by folk singer Burl Ives . . . the fracas started when the Ungers, who customarily wear monocles at social gatherings, found the Sadick twins in the seats which, the Ungers contended, had been reserved for them.” Bertil went home with a black eye, but not his monocled one.
According to Takla-O’Reilly, most association members nowadays are American citizens. About 10 also belong to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. About half have been Foreign Press members for more than 30 years. (She has logged 38 years.)
Five-time president Yani Begakis has written for the same Japanese magazine throughout his 35-year membership. “I go to a movie once a day and I go home and watch two more after the news. I see 98% of the product that comes out,” he says. “I used to see seven movies a day when I was young. I just love it. If they cut my veins, celluloid would come out instead of blood. As long as my hands and heart works, I have no desire to retire.”
Takla-O’Reilly said that Gregory Peck attended an association function last year specifically to present a special award to Begakis.
Some senior members have “formed relationships with the oldest, most revered celebrities,” says Pamela Godwin-Austen, vice-president of international publicity for Dennis Davidson Associates. Like other publicists contacted for this article who deal with the group, she expressed a genuine fondness for the group’s elders. “They’ve watched this industry grow and probably know more about it than many people at the studios. Overall you have to respect them. They’ve made something from nothing.”
Godwin-Austen said that the group’s mean age is coming down and the number of countries and important publications its members represent is expanding.
“The more I know the older members, the more I respect them,” says Silvia Bizio, correspondent for the Italian publications L’Espresso and La Repubblica. She joined the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. in 1981 after coming to Los Angeles to get a PhD in sociology and mass communications at UCLA. “My magazines are quite serious. I don’t cover gossip,” Bizio says, but “[we have the] assurance of major interest from our readers.”
The hunger for Hollywood news is prevalent even in Russia, says Serge Rakhlin, one of last year’s two new association members. Rakhlin, who has lived in Los Angeles and written about movies since coming here from Riga, Latvia, 16 years ago, writes for Ekran (Screen in Russian) magazine and a new publication, Art Prestige. He says about 90% of the movies shown in Russia now are American movies, and periodicals’ coverage of Hollywood reflects the percentage of what is shown on screen.
In the old Soviet Union, he says, there were few American films to see that weren’t either pirated or the booty of Russian troops who took them from Germans after World War II ended. “I remember they were sensational. All my life, I have been a lover of different movies. They are windows to the world.”
This year Rakhlin gets his first ticket to the Golden Globe awards dinner ceremony, reputed by Foreign Press skeptics and fans alike to be the best party of the year.
“Anyone who is [anybody] is there,” says Andre Guimond, correspondent for Quebec City’s Le Soleil and chairman of the association’s foreign language film committee. “They hop from one table to another. . . . It’s conducive to hobnobbing.”
The past two years, winners of the Golden Globes for dramatic picture, actor and actress have gone on to win the Oscar. Such parallels are not necessarily new, however.
“In the main,” noted Variety columnist Frank Scully, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.’s “awards have been excellent front-runners for the final Academy choices.” He wrote that in 1953.