THE KUDOS CRASHER

The write stuff

Black velvet tuxes, fainting spells and punchlines — flying without a keyboard at the WGA Awards.

Richard Rushfield

The Kudos Crasher

February 6, 2006

If it is possible for two words to exist at opposite ends of the Hollywood lexicon, those words would be "glamour" and "writer."

Since the silent films first required a handful of scribes to jot down what was going to happen onscreen, writers have served a hallowed place in the industry's pantheon — the underdressed, unappreciated schlubs in the back room whose sad-sack demeanors make even executives feel, by comparison, posh and debonair.

Despite the dangers inherent in a massed gathering of these characters, the Writers Guild annually tosses its moth-eaten baseball cap into the ring with a black-tie gala to honor the favored scribes of film and television. This year's event was at the storied Hollywood Palladium, dance hall of the swing era, looking for the writers to restore its lost luster.

Cocktail hour of the penguins
Throughout my awards season travels, I have seen the different strata of Hollywood society attempt to re-carve that most rigid sartorial standby — the tux — in their own image.

Actors turn theirs into showcases for flashy vests and ties, making the black-tie look like nightclub wear. Journalists compliment them with tennis shoes, transforming tuxes into wrinkled pajamas. Producers manage to make their tuxes look like business suits.

Entering the Palladium, I expect that if there is one guild likely to slouch on the invitation's "Black Tie Preferred" request, it is the writers.

Instead, in the crowded lobby where pre-show cocktails are served I find ... nothing but tuxes. A sea of tuxes. The highest percentage of black-tie observance I've seen to date. And not just tuxes, but stodgy formal, pleated-shirt, cummerbund and clip-on-tie tuxes.

Some would suggest the influence of the Rat Pack and poker-and-martini chic on this crowd. Nicholas Stoller, writer of "Fun with Dick and Jane" tells me he bought his gold-studded Brooks Brothers tux recently, "For a wedding, and I'm relieved I've got an event to wear it to."

Says "Everybody Hates Chris" Ali LeRoi, "Ninety percent of the time we're in sweats. Once in a while, you have to dress up."

Dinnerdance
As the overstuffed lobby is about to burst at its seams, the doors open to the main room and we are beckoned inside for dinner. I find my table surprisingly close to the stage. Two couples are standing at it. Both, I learn, are "West Wing" writers. As they seem to know each other and are having a private chat, I take a seat and start work on the rather sparse green salad.

Another couple arrives, also "Wing" writers, and then another couple, whom it turns out are with the "Wing." A theme has emerged as clearly as a though a cruise ship just docked on my left ankle: I, a reporter, have been seated at the "West Wing" table, a fact that makes my tablemates emit a measurable frost.

Shortly, the farce turns to tragedy as another couple arrives and finds there are no seats left at the table. All eyes turn upon me, and my devoured salad. Amid apologies, bowing and scraping, I back away from the table before the Guild police are summoned.

Before I am shown the door, the nearby "Six Feet Under" table notices my predicament and kindly offers me one of their empty seats. Writer and author Jill Soloway tells me the night is a reunion for the staff, who ended their five-year HBO run in 2005 and are nominated for best dramatic series tonight.

"We were surprised HBO still sent limos to pick us up," she says. "Sedans this year, shorter than before, but still limos."

In honor of our struggling comrades
The show begins with a speech by Guild President Patric Verrone and a video presentation in honor of the Reality TV writers, who labor without WGA protection.

The horror stories told in the video ("I had to sleep on my editing bay floor") pay tribute to the people who bring you "The Bachelor." One speech asks the audience to visualize what "Elimidate" would look like if it really had no writers.

A harrowing thought indeed.

Case of the uglies
The physical disparties between writers and other branches of the entertainment professions is much discussed. "We're a little fat or a little ugly. That's why we're writers," Soloway says.

Another voice at the "Six" table takes issue with the stereotype. Mary Cleveland, wife of writer Rick Cleveland says, "Compared to where I grew up in Minnesota, these people look pretty good. Everybody here has had a good meal recently, they've had the eye surgery and other surgeries, they've been in the sun. That doesn't sound too ugly to me."

On with the show
The show starts, hosted by writer/director/actor Jon Favreau, who manages to set a fairly relaxed and funny tone throughout the night. He opens with a gag mocking the writer's place on the totem pole.

As a fellow writer, he tells the crowd, he honors their work. As a director, however, "I think you've taken it as far as you can…The studio's putting a lot of pressure on me to bring in another guy…What can you do, it's a studio."

The show manages to maintain a lighthearted tone, limiting the portentous, where-would-the-world-be-without-writers speeches. But there still is a strange made-for-TV quality, even though the event is not being televised.

The night clips along from award to award at a rigid production pace with hand-held cameras racing through the aisles to record winners' glee, giant teleprompters, a dulcet-toned announcer and a drapery heavy, fluted-columned, overlit set that could only appear beautiful through a TV lens.

One of these days, might one of these guilds think about throwing a show just to make a fun night for themselves?


Ode to the 'A-Team'
The Only-in-Hollywood moment comes at the presentation of the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television for writers "who have advanced the literature of television," which this year is given to '80s action king Stephen J. Cannell.

I am treated to the august spectacle of 1500 tuxedoed writers solemnly watching the clip reel scroll off his credits, "The A-Team. Hunter. Riptide. Stingray. Hardcastle and McCormick. The Commish."

Cannell also takes the fashion award for the evening, accepting his prize in black velvet jacket, purple shirt and a straight tie, which appears to be studded with diamonds.

Is there a non-TV doctor in the house?
About two-thirds of the way through the night, just as the award for best dramatic series is about to be presented, a little scream comes from across the room and a dozen or so people leap to their feet.

The house lights are raised and we are told someone has collapsed. The show pauses for 20 minutes while paramedics arrive and help the woman, who is eventually able to get up and walk out, into an ambulance.

I later learn that the person requiring assistance was the mother of one of the "Grey's Anatomy" writers. She had flown in from Alabama for the show, and was overcome just as her daughter's award was about to be presented.

Once the fainting mother was removed, "Gray's Anatomy" won their category, the staff, under the circumstances, forgoing the comedic speech they had planned.

Mindy Kaling, writer/co-star of "The Office" who is seated one table away, says that observing the highs and lows of the "Anatomy" table, "was even more exciting than an episode of their show."

The thundering herd
After attending a series of these shows, it's almost starting to feel like a road show theatrical production, with the same people presenting and accepting over and over. Geena Davis, George Clooney and Paul Haggis are becoming like family after seeing so many of their speeches.

Only Larry McMurtry comments on the bizarre spectacle, saying he has now been to six shows in the past month and he is "trying to puzzle out what relation awards ceremonies have to civilization as I used to think I knew it."

He then dedicates his awards to the most important people in the room, "the young people who find the cars. Who go out after the show into a herd of black limos and somehow they find the right car."

Final thoughts
"The 40-year-old Virgin" co-star Seth Rogen, on hand to support writer/director Judd Apatow's bid for best original screenplay, offers up the night's most telling summation after his film loses out to "Crash."

"'40-year-old' was the only nominated movie I've seen, so I have no opinion of whether we lost deservedly or were cheated," Rogen says. "I'll have to take their word that 'Crash' must've been better. But free booze on a Saturday night…I can't complain."