Oscar’s Stage Hands

They might stand this close to the biggest movie stars in the world at their moments of ultimate glory, but the women who deliver the Oscar statuettes to the winners harbor no misconceptions about their task. “Basically, I am there as a glamorized traffic cop,” says Renee Gentry. “And I get to wear pretty dresses.”

Gentry, who’s onstage this evening, has twice before been an Academy Award “trophy lady”-- an unfortunate title that Ret Turner, the awards’ associate costume designer, quickly admits is politically incorrect. An agency chooses two women at a cattle call audition of 30 models. Turner then picks eight to 10 “tasteful and subdued” gowns from the racks at Macy’s, Nordstrom, Saks and Neiman’s Studio for the size 4, 5-foot, 7-inch models, which the awards’ costume designer, Ray Aghayan, narrows down to two outfits. “I don’t want them to be a major star,” Turner says. “I always dress them in black because it doesn’t conflict with who is onstage receiving the Oscar.” Turner also buys the ladies comfort high heels--we’re not talking Manolo Blahniks--though Gentry has shopped for her own footwear. “Sometimes I find really good deals at liquidations,” she notes.

At pre-show rehearsals, the ladies don their ensembles and walk the walk so Turner can foresee such calamitous possibilities as tripping on lengthy hems; they also spend eight to 10 hours a day passing an 8-pound trophy prototype like a baton to perfect the statue pitch. They’ve utilized water bottles and paint cans as emergency prototype stand-ins, which is a good thing, Gentry says, because Oscar “is heavy. He is not light.”