Class . . . Class . . . Pay Attention Please!

The next time they all gather--on March 23--the nominees for this year’s Academy Awards will be sitting nervously at the Shrine Auditorium waiting for the envelopes to be opened to learn if they’ve won an Oscar. Only 20% will leave the auditorium happy. The rest will feel a mixture of envy and depression. But today, all those feelings will be cast aside as those same nominees gather for a luncheon in their honor at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. “On Oscar night, you bring nerves and all kind of problems,” said academy executive director Bruce Davis. “At the end of the evening, only one out of five really feels wonderful. Whereas, at this event, everybody feels wonderful.” A total of 113 nominees from 23 categories are expected to attend this year’s luncheon. Davis said the event came about in 1982 as a public relations effort to keep the nominees in the public spotlight in the weeks between the nominations and the awards show. “Out of those somewhat cynical origins came a wonderful thing,” Davis said. When the actors, directors, producers, writers and other nominees arrive at today’s luncheon, they will face a phalanx of photographers, but once inside the event, no cameras will be allowed. “We want it to be a very relaxing kind of thing,” Davis explained. Seating is arranged so that no two nominees from a single movie will be seated together. There will also be no long-winded speeches. “We do this corny thing where, in the middle of the luncheon, we put them all up on a set of risers like a high school photograph and we take the ‘Class of 1997’ picture,” Davis said. “Then the president of the academy [producer Bob Rehme] goes up on stage and calls out their names in alphabetical order and one by one they quickly go across and receive their [nomination] certificates.” Gil Cates, who is producing this year’s Oscar telecast, will then lecture them on what to do should they win. “He tells them about the virtues of brevity, wit, showmanship and that a list of names is not the same as a wonderful speech,” Davis said. “He harangues them in a nice way.”

2 Academies, 1 Emmy: And the Winner Is . . .

Expect all smiles when nominations are announced Wednesday for the Daytime Emmy Awards, despite an ongoing fracas involving the two organizations behind that event. The Daytime Emmys are presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, based in New York, and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, situated in North Hollywood, which also presents the nighttime Emmys. In August, the New York academy unsuccessfully sought to block its counterpart from introducing an Emmy for best commercial. Even after an arbitrator ruled against it and the nighttime Emmy ceremony was held, NATAS persisted, saying the commercial that won had first aired in daytime and thus wasn’t eligible. Local officials have expressed dismay that the other academy keeps pursuing the matter, and ATAS President Meryl Marshall said Friday that while there’s no intention of dropping the commercial Emmy, the parties are still talking, seeking some accommodation to resolve the dispute. A NATAS spokeswoman declined comment, saying the issue is “still in the legal process.” In the meantime, the two academies--which split apart in the 1970s--remain wedded on the Daytime Emmys, which NBC will televise on May 15.

Like Your Country Strait, No Chaser?

Country music moves into new territory this week when the George Strait Country Music Festival, an 18-date tour that reaches Anaheim Stadium on April 25, kicks off Saturday at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Ariz. Country accounted for 15% of the nation’s total album sales in 1996 (’97 figures aren’t yet available), and artists ranging from Strait and Garth Brooks to Reba McEntire and Vince Gill have long shown their potent drawing power in arena tours and in occasional stadium shows. But this is believed to be the most ambitious stadium tour ever attempted by a country act. Strait is making the jump with an all-star lineup that also includes Tim McGraw and wife Faith Hill, John Michael Montgomery, Lee Ann Womack, Lila McCann and Asleep at the Wheel, and ticket sales have been brisk. More than 40,000 tickets have been sold for each of the six shows already on sale, including about 60,000 for this week’s opener. (Tickets for the Anaheim show go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m.) “I knew it was going to be big, but not this big,” says Louis Messina, chairman of the Houston-based PACE Music Group, which is promoting and producing the tour. “George’s popularity just continues to grow and grow.”