For First-Time Producer, Getting Allen Was Coup

Inquiring beautiful minds have a few remaining questions about Sunday night’s show.

Among the most pressing is how did first-time show producer Laura Ziskin manage to persuade notorious Oscar-avoider Woody Allen to attend?

“That was just a miracle. Every Oscar show producer has wanted Woody Allen. Early on I wanted to do a film about New York and make it integral to the show. I asked Nora Ephron to put together the film.

“I ran into Jeffrey Katzenberg [co-head of DreamWorks Pictures, through which Allen’s movies are now released] at the Women in Film luncheon and told him that more than anything I wanted Woody to introduce Nora’s film. He turned to Terry Press [DreamWorks marketing head] and said, ‘She’ll make it happen.’ Terry, [publicist] Leslee Dart and Jeffrey did it.

“But Woody wouldn’t let us tell anybody. Not even the network knew. At the rehearsal I asked Nora to introduce the film. Woody arrived at 5 o’clock on Sunday and slipped in through the rear entrance and sat in my office until it was time for him to go on. He left immediately afterwards. There was no script, no TelePrompTer. For live TV it was thrilling.”

How about that more than four-hour running time?

“I had three honorary Oscars [Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier and Arthur Hiller], seven standing ovations--but who’s counting? And a new Oscar category, best animated feature,” she said.

As for the winners who pulled out sheets of paper and read from them, she said, “At the nominees luncheon I gave a speech asking them not to do that. It fell on deaf ears, though some people came prepared and had memorized their acceptance speeches.”

Will she do it again next year? “I haven’t given it any thought. Right now I’m finishing up ‘Spider-Man,’ my day job. But it was great fun and [the academy] treated me very well.”

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What happened to Will Smith?

For Smith, real life supplanted reel life on Oscar night. According to Smith’s publicist Stan Rosenfield, at about the time of the Sidney Poitier tribute, early in the Oscar telecast, the best actor nominee and his wife, Jada Pinkett, received a call that their 16-month-old daughter, Willow, was running a 103-degree fever. They immediately left and took her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with an ear infection. She is at home and recuperating now. Close relation Maggie Smith, as Whoopi Goldberg referred to her during the show, was waiting to accept the Oscar in case he won.

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Jennifer Connelly will next be seen in the effects-laden big-screen version of “The Hulk,” directed by Ang Lee with Australian actor Eric Bana (“Black Hawk Down,” “Chopper”) in the title role. It’s scheduled for summer 2003.

In a complete turnabout from her unglamorous Oscar-winning role of Letitia Musgrove in “Monster’s Ball,” Halle Berry will next be seen as the sexy Jinx in the James Bond adventure “Die Another Day,” which is due at year’s end.

Next summer she returns as Storm in the sequel to “X-Men” currently titled “X2,” again for director Brian Singer.

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Denzel Washington’s next effort re-teams him with director Carl Franklin, who guided the actor to a previous Oscar nomination for “Devil in a Blue Dress,” on “Out of Time,” which starts filming in May for MGM. He plays a cop again, this time a police chief in a Florida town. Washington’s directing debut, the still-untitled Antwone Fisher Story, is expected to come out this fall. It is based on the life of a young man, born in prison to a mother who later deserted him, who turns his life around.

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Jim Broadent will be seen on screen this summer as the corrupt Boss Tweed in Martin Scorsese’s epic “Gangs of New York,” starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio. He will also appear in a new screen version of Charles Dickens’ “Nicholas Nickelby” later in the year.

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Ron Howard is in pre-production for a full-scale remake of “The Alamo” for Disney, due for release in 2003.

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Producer Brian Grazer has several projects coming, three of which will be released this year. This summer brings the spy spoof “Undercover Brother” and the surfing movie “Blue Crush.” In November comes “8 Mile,” the big-screen debut of rapper Eminem.