The Hollywood Globetrotters
They’re kingmakers. Tonight, the golden laurels with which the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. will crown 1999’s “best” motion pictures will arguably result in millions of additional box office. As in years past, its choices will generally presage, with remarkable accuracy, what the Academy will deliver in March. And yet, even as it heralds what is known around these parts as “Award Season” (the one Vivaldi so glaringly omitted from his opus), just who makes up that somewhat misunderstood organization behind the Golden Globes remains a mystery.
That fact irks Helmut Voss, West Coast bureau chief of Germany’s Springer Publishing Corp. (nothing to do with Jerry) and president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. “People may criticize the HFPA,” says Voss, a 60-year-old Hamburg native, “but as far as our knowledge of movies and television programs is concerned, I don’t think there’s another group in this town who collectively brings as much knowledge to giving out awards.”
The “group” to which Voss refers, the one whose collective critical choices cause so many Hollywood producers and PR people to salivate, consists of all of 84 members--mostly freelance writers--representing 44 countries, from Argentina to Yugoslavia, Korea to Kuwait. “All you have to do to become a member is present four bylined clippings from the foreign publication you represent,” says Voss, a member since 1972. “Then you need two sponsors from within the organization, and if the existing body votes in your application, after your first year as a member, you become a fully active voting member.”
That and $15. Yes, the cost of three valet parking fees, or two tickets to “Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo,” or one of Steven Spielberg’s gym socks will cover your annual dues.
Hey! I’m a freelancer. I could cough up the dues. All I need is a gig as entertainment correspondent to, say, the New Zealand Times (they speak English there, right?), and maybe some desperate Tinseltown mogul will try to wine and dine me for my vote. Compared to having to woo the entire 6,000-plus voting bloc of the Academy to chase down one of those tired old Oscars, I’d be a cheap date.