Emmys, Take 3: Tension Is High

In a spirit of resolve, many prominent members of the television community will leave their homes on the Westside on Sunday afternoon and ride in town cars and limousines to Century City, where they will attend the 53rd annual Prime Time Emmy Awards at the Shubert Theatre.

That many of the attendees need only take Little Santa Monica Boulevard to Avenue of the Stars to attend the ceremony will probably help quell anxiety at a time when America’s war against terrorism is giving high-profile events like the Emmys an air of tension. And Americans, including otherwise-coddled celebrities, are still processing the potential threats on their secure lives.

Indeed, the Emmys, which will air on CBS, arrive six days after Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft issued a general warning about a potential terrorist attack on the United States within the week; a month after the Emmys were canceled on the day the U.S. began its bombing campaign in Afghanistan Oct. 7; and nearly two months after the Emmys, originally scheduled for Sept. 16, were canceled after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

In a scare on Thursday, California Gov. Gray Davis said law enforcement officials had “credible” evidence that terrorists were targeting a California bridge at rush hour between now and Wednesday, although Davis apparently made the announcement without the blessing of the federal government.

None of this has made the entertainment community exactly thrilled about gathering in a big symbolic group for an event whose credibility has been battered and bruised amid several postponements. In the interim, the virtual suggestion box in Hollywood wanted the Emmys canceled, held as an understated luncheon and refashioned as a patriotic rallying cry on a military base, to name three options.

Though Emmy organizers released a laundry list of A-list presenters this week to show that the event was back on track, other stars were more quietly not coming, motivated by a sense that being a celebrity right now is almost in poor taste and/or by issues of security.

Prominent among the expected no-shows Sunday are nominees Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow from the NBC sitcom “Friends”; James Gandolfini and Sarah Jessica Parker from the HBO series “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City,” respectively; Will Ferrell, nominated for his lampooning of President Bush on “Saturday Night Live”; and Emma Thompson, nominated for her role in the HBO movie “Wit.” Also not attending will be many writers and producers from such New York-based shows as “Late Show With David Letterman.”

Some of the no-shows--like Parker, who is in a play at the Manhattan Theater Club--are caused by scheduling conflicts that arose when the ceremony was twice postponed.

Organizers--to say nothing of the celebrity-driven TV outlets that feed off of star sightings--are nevertheless hoping for a lively red carpet. E! Entertainment Television, for instance, plans five hours of coverage, including commentary from the costume-appraising Joan Rivers.

Asked Tuesday if Ashcroft’s terrorist warning gave him pause, Bryce Zabel, chairman of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which presents the ceremony, said: “We have been in a state of alert for the Emmy telecast from Day One.”

Security will include car searches, metal detectors and police escorts for arriving celebrities. “Overall, we have created a secure zone above and around the Shubert,” Zabel told reporters in a conference call this week, adding that postponements are no longer an option.

That’s good news to some nominees.

“I, for one, will be relieved when it’s finally over,” Emmy-nominated actor Rob Lowe (“The West Wing”) said at an event Monday, noting that he was “originally scheduled to lose to Martin Sheen on Sept. 16.”

Lowe and the rest of the cast from the hit NBC White House drama are expected to attend the ceremony, as “The West Wing” goes head to head with HBO’s Mafia drama “The Sopranos” as co-favorites in the best drama category.

To accommodate stars of shows that shoot in New York, the Emmys had added an East Coast component to the Oct. 7 ceremony, enabling nominees to attend without having to board planes. With that plan scrapped, many nominees are not making the trip west, though they were dubious about participating even when that meant only hopping in a cab.

Underscoring the mood there, Chris Albrecht, president of original programming at HBO, said earlier this week: “This latest warning that came two nights ago [from Ashcroft] has really freaked out the people in New York.”

The Emmys are an important promotional tool for the pay cable network, with “Sex and the City” and “The Sopranos” perennial nominees, in addition to original movies; this year, Billy Crystal’s “61*” and Mike Nichols’ “Wit,” among others, have received multiple nominations.

“We’ve tried to encourage people to come out [from New York],” Albrecht said, adding that such enticements as the AOL-Time Warner corporate jet can help. “It’s in HBO’s best interest, if people win, to be able to take the stage time [and] acknowledge the win, maybe thank HBO.”

At the same time, Albrecht said, “we’re not cavalier” about people’s decisions. “The Sopranos” creator, David Chase, isn’t attending because the series recently started production on its fourth season, Albrecht said, though it’s doubtful that the iconoclastic Chase and Gandolfini put much stock in the communal symbolism of hopping a plane to L.A. to sit in a theater with their fellow nominees.

Other nominated cast members from both hit HBO shows are expected to attend. Still, Albrecht acknowledged, “it’s hard to say to people, ‘Look, you should do this.”’

In recent weeks, Zabel and Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Television, have fought off calls for an outright cancellation, one of which came from Dennis Franz, the nominated star of the ABC police drama “NYPD Blue” (Franz is expected to attend Sunday).

But all along, the financial stakes for the academy and, more significant, for CBS dictated that a splashy--but appropriate--ceremony would be held, complete with celebrity gawking and hype.

The academy didn’t want to lose the $3-million license fee it is getting from CBS and additional money generated by selling tickets, at $600 per person, to the ceremony and Governors Ball, now called a Unity Dinner. Some of that money had to be refunded when the event moved from the Shrine Auditorium, which seats 6,000, to the Shubert, which seats about 2,000. Additionally, the academy had to pay some of the businesses at the ABC Entertainment Center, including the Century Plaza movie theaters adjacent to the Shubert, to close on Sunday.

For CBS, which also forfeited money when the Oct. 7 ceremony was canceled just hours before air time, the Emmy telecast comes on the first Sunday of the November ratings sweeps, a period in which networks schedule event TV in a bid to boost viewership. As a result, the Emmys will face far more formidable competition than usual, including a potential Game 7 of the World Series on Fox, an original episode of Emmy nominee “The Practice” on ABC and the NBC miniseries “Uprising.”

Back when CBS was using the Emmys to promote its new fall lineup, the network tapped comedian Ellen DeGeneres to host, hoping audiences would find her funny and engaging--as opposed to a symbol of gay rights--and thus be encouraged to sample her new CBS sitcom, “The Ellen Show.”

In the last two months, however, “The Ellen Show” has drawn low ratings on Friday nights, and DeGeneres is a potential lame-duck CBS star, someone whose sitcom the network has conspicuously not picked up for a full season, though it has ordered additional scripts.

As for the telecast itself, executive producer Gary Smith said he would steer the show “back a little more toward what it was going to be in September,” less a somber event than one that tones down the glamour and competition and focuses on the year’s quality TV. Segments scheduled for the Oct. 7 broadcast--tributes to firefighters and police officers, for instance--will not be used, Smith said. “It has nothing to do with anyone’s feeling that it’s not without merit,” he said of such tributes.

But Smith, who replaced Don Mischer when the latter left to produce the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, said talk-show host Larry King would present a piece on how American troops are entertained during war and another showing how the world responded to the Sept. 11 attacks.

*

Times staff writer Brian Lowry contributed to this story.

*

The 53rd Prime Time Emmy Awards are scheduled to air Sunday night at 8 on CBS.