Gooding, Binoche Win for Supporting Roles

The stars, the directors and the producers arrived at the Shrine Auditorium on Monday night for Hollywood’s biggest extravaganza of the year--the Academy Awards.

First winner of the night: Cuba Gooding Jr., who played a “show-me-the-money” football player whose agent, Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) undergoes a personal transformation in the comedy “Jerry Maguire.”

An exuberant Gooding vowed to stay on the air and thank everyone until the cameras cut away. True to his word, he started shouting out names as the music started. “Hallelujah!” he shouted. “Tom Cruise--I love you, brother! I love you, man.” And when the show didn’t immediately cut to a commercial, he kept going: “Everyone involved with this: I love you, I love you, I love you!”

His joy became an ongoing joke during the evening. “I couldn’t tell--did Cuba thank me?” Steve Martin said as he introduced a clip from “Jerry Maguire,” which also was nominated for best picture.

In a surprise selection, the best supporting actress award went to Juliette Binoche for her role as a World War II nurse in “The English Patient.” The odds-on favorite had been longtime star Lauren Bacall for her role as Barbra Streisand’s mother in “The Mirror Has Two Faces.”

Also announced early in the evening were two other awards for “The English Patient”-- for art direction to Stuart Craig and Stephenie McMillan and to Ann Roth for costumer design--seeming to indicate an early trend toward the film that had been expected to dominate the evening.

The evening’s host, comedian and actor Billy Crystal, set a comic note with a clip in which he played characters from all five best picture nominees. He also introduced Madonna, who was snubbed as best actress nominee for “Evita” by saying she was going to sing, “Don’t Cry for Me, Because I’ll Get Back at You If It Takes Me the Rest of My Life,” a play on one of “Evita’s” most famous songs, “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.”

Thousands of movie fans gathered outside the auditorium to watch their favorite stars arrive. They reserved their loudest cheers not for a movie personality but for boxing great Muhammed Ali as he walked up the red carpet. Ali attended the Oscars for the documentary “When We Were Kings,” a film about his famous 1974 prize fight with George Foreman in Zaire.

Legions of fans, some of whom had been outside since Thursday, were armed with cameras, hoping to snap pictures of their favorite stars.

“I slept on the concrete,” said Kenan Jones, who had camped out for two nights. “It hurt bad, but it was worth it.”

It was the night the movie-making capital of the world put on a show. Part of the glitter was to come from $140 million worth of diamonds donated by an international jeweler and destined for the necks, wrists and earlobes of the famous--if only for Oscar night.

In addition, the world’s most famous fashion designers had been knocking each other over to entice the stars to wear their gowns and tuxedos.

After the show, it was party time as studios hoped to attract the rich and famous to their post-Oscar bashes.

Apart from the traditional “Governor’s Ball” for 1,650 guests, Elton John’s AIDS benefit party was expected to be the hottest ticket in town. The all-star guests were to have the chance to sing “Happy Birthday” to the singer, who turns 50 today.

This year, apart from Hollywood legend Bacall in the best supporting actress category, there were no obvious favorites to grab the Oscars handed out by the Academy of Motion Picutre Arts and Sciences.

“The English Patient,” which picked up the most nominations with 12, was thought to have a chance of winning for best picture, but was up against a Tom Cruise blockbuster, “Jerry Maguire,” and three quirky, independently produced films, “Secrets & Lies,” “Shine” and “Fargo.”

“The English Patient’s” lead actors Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas and director Anthony Minghella also were nominated.

Cruise and Fiennes were joined in the best actor category by Woody Harrelson for “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” Geoffrey Rush for “Shine” and Billy Bob Thornton for “Sling Blade.”

Along with Scott Thomas, the best actress nominees were Brenda Blethyn (“Secrets & Lies”), Frances McDormand (“Fargo”), Emily Watson (“Breaking the Waves”) and Diane Keaton (“Marvin’s Room”).

But while the shining limousines lined up outside the auditorium with celebrities, Hollywood power brokers and Oscar nominees hoping for a glittering, glitch-free evening, there was trouble in the skies.

One small aircraft circling above the Shrine trailed a banner reading, “Columbia Studios Sucks--Larry Flynt,” in an apparent reference to the fact that the academy, which presents the awards, had not invited the controversial publisher of Hustler magazine to join in the ceremony. Woody Harrelson’s portrayal of Flynt in the film, “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” garnered a best actor Oscar nomination for the former “Cheers” star.

Walt Disney Studios also came under an aerial bombardment over its alleged sweatshop practices in Haiti, where some of Disney’s clothing and memorabilia lines are manufactured.

On another political note, the Rev. Jesse Jackson had railed ahead of the Oscars against racism in Hollywood, a year after the civil rights activist picketed the event.

Meanwhile, in Fargo, N.D., residents--at least those with a good sense of humor--turned out to honor the Oscar-nominated movie “Fargo” and to prove that no one can better poke fun at their town than the town itself.

“We’re here to celebrate our strength, our resilience and our ability to laugh at ourselves,” said Margie Bailly, who helped organize the Oscar bash at the city’s historic Fargo Theatre. “Besides, we need a party right about now. We’re smack in the middle of the snow and the flood seasons.”

“I took off work and came just for this, don’tcha know,” said Jackie Robertson, of Fertile, Minn., who came dressed the part of Marge Gunderson, the pregnant police chief played by best actress nominee Frances McDormand.

“Fargo,” directed by Minnesota natives Joel and Ethan Coen, is a dark comedy about a Minnesota car salesman who hires two hit men in Fargo to kidnap his wife. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including best picture and best screenplay.