Dramas In Front Of And Behind The Cameras

From The Times: April 1, 1981

There are really two Oscar shows evey year: The traditional version that 300 million people across the globe watch on their television screens, and the spontaneous burst of mini-dramas that erupts in and around the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center at Oscar time. Tuesday night's 53rd edition of the show had its share of the latter. For instance:

Academy officials were still wondering late Tuesday night if the real Ferenc Rofusz had accepted his award. Rofusz, the Hungarian producer of the winning animated short film "The Fly," had not been scheduled to attend the ceremonies. But just as presenters Alan Arkin and Margot Kidder were announcing that the academy would accept on behalf of Rofusz, a bearded man bounded onto the stage, made a short acceptance speech, posed for the obligatory photos and departed with an Oscar, leaving, somehow, an air of mystery…

Deadlines all over town were scrapped Monday when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and ABC-TV decided to postpone the Oscar ceremonies for 24 hours. Newspapers remade their pages, tuxedo rental shops gave customers an extra day, and ABC quickly rushed in additional programming for the evening.

One newspaper anticipated too much too soon, however, and ended up reporting an event that never took place. The Civic Center News, a free publication from the Downtown News Group, discussed the heavy traffic downtown, describing how "the cars of award winners, presenters, press, academy members and stargazers" spilled into downtown streets Monday evening.

The publication often referred to the winners, calling "Ordinary People" the "most honored film of the year." The paper's report concluded, "If one word could describe the films honored at First and Grand last night, it might be 'connection.'"

If one word could describe the reaction of the newspaper's staff Tuesday, it might be "embarrassed." "We got seriously caught, and there was no excuse for it," acknowledged a spokesman for the Civic Center News. "We're a small operation with an early Monday deadline, so there was no way to change the copy. It was just a big mistake."

The President of the United States was recovering from a gunshot wound, the Russians were feared to be imminently invading Poland, and there were serious questions about who would be running the country if the President remained incapacitated.

But the big question in Hollywood was whether to use the prerecorded tape. Not the tape of Reagan being felled by a would-be assassin bullet, but the taped message saluting the movie industry the President made almost two weeks ago that was intended to lead off the original Monday night telecast.

Finally, the word from the White House came in to academy lawyer Gyte Van Zyl Tuesday at 3 a.m., or 6 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Reagan himself had told his aides that the academy was free to use the prerecorded clip "in whatever fashion they deemed proper." So in this case, the show went on.

Considering the complex preparations that go into the three-hour broadcast, remarkably little havoc resulted from the one-day postponement. The only presenter to drop out of the program was Kris Kristofferson, who had to return to New York, where he is making "Rollover" with Jane Fonda.

Jack Lemmon agreed to sub for Kristofferson in presenting the best supporting actor award, along with Mary Tyler Moore, so one potential crisis was averted. Opera star Luciano Pavarotti was able to stay for the Oscar broadcast, but had to depart immediately afterward for a Florida concert engagement.

"Considering what could have happened," said a relieved academy spokesman, "we came out of this quite well."

Few people who attended the glittery Governor's Ball following the Oscar ceremonies were coming out of the Beverly Hilton Hotel quite so easily. The hotel got caught in a culinary squeeze play when it ended up with two major sit-down dinners on the same evening, one for the academy guests and the other for the participants in the American Film Market, who had the hotel's international ballroom booked prior to the Oscar postponement.

A compromise was worked out at the last minute, giving the film marketeers the ballroom from 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., after which the academy people came streaming in. What resulted, however, was a giant scramble for parking spaces. "I'll be lucky if I get my car by Thursday," moaned one movie producer.