..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

December 15, 2003

 

GOLDEN GLOBES TV EXPOSE:
TRIO NETWORK'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

The Let's-Bash-the-Globes-for-Fun TV Special Revealed a REAL Shockeroo: Universal Television's Entertainment Cable Network Knows Little About Entertainment Awards

By Tom O'Neil
Author, "Movie Awards," "The Emmys," "The Grammys" (Penguin Putnam books)
Host, GoldDerby.com, the #1 award-predictions website
Senior Editor, In Touch Weekly

Beating up on the Golden Globes is a favorite sport in Hollywood -- particularly among American media snobs who can't resist taking a punch at a ragtag gang of foreign journalists who created something amazing: TV's second-highest awards show, which really informs the top-ranked one. Over the past 60 years, the Oscars have rubber-stamped a Best Picture choice of the Globes 44 times. At least a dozen films -- from "An American in Paris" to "Shakespeare in Love" -- would not have won the top Academy Award without a bump from the Globes. In more recent years, about two-thirds of Oscar's Best Actors and Actresses were snatched from the Globes' ranks.

But the Globes aren't equal to the Oscars, media bullies insist, because the history of the Globes' parent group, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, is haunted by scandals and goofs that are constantly held up for ridicule by the ruling Yankees of showbiz. Trio network couldn't resist joining the mob and debuted a much-ballyhooed TV special -- "The Golden Globes: Hollywood's Dirty Little Secret" -- that was as journalistically irresponsible as Trio accused the Globes of being.

The TV special was clearly out for blood, pummeling the Globes as "a joke" and "a scam" run by "idiots" and showbiz "bottom feeders" "who are getting away with murder." The assertions came from such experts as John Powers, a writer for L.A. Weekly, who belongs to the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, which has failed woefully in the past to pull of what the Globes have done so spectacularly. In the early 1980s, TV producer Merv Griffin gave them the L.A. critics their big chance at their own awards telecast, but the show was so bad that it was quickly booted off the air. Another expert was Sharon Waxman, who's mounted a scorch-and-burn campaign against the Globes for years in the pages of the Washington Post. Also featured prominently was Danish journalist Jeannie Mortensen, who doesn't belong to the HFPA, but producers used her to reveal what cushy perks journalists get while covering the showbiz beat -- including fake-smile photos with celebs -- but TV viewers are left wondering: If other journalists accept those perks, what's wrong with HFPA members getting them?

HFPA leaders refused to be interviewed, which the TV special ballyhooed as proof that its scandalous claims must be true. But officials knew what was coming -- that's how automatic Globe-bashing is. For eons, for example, the HFPA has been lambasted for admitting members who are part-time journalists who must only submit four newspaper or magazine clippings per year to demonstrate that they're still active in journalism. But exposes written about the Globes never mention that Oscar voters don't have to bother proving that they're still active in the industry at all -- indeed, many of them haven't made a flicker since "Birth of a Nation." The L.A. Times's Jack Mathews once griped that membership requirements of the L.A. film critics group "are only slightly tighter than those for the Hertz No. 1 Club" -- at least one member was a marketer who'd never even written about film -- but Globe bashers never mention what the membership standards are at equivalent Yankee groups. Only two years ago did the LAFCA finally adopt the same minimum standard maintained by the HFPA -- those four article clippings per year.

The Trio TV special notes that many years ago the Globes gave awards to stars if they'd show up to accept them, but, strangely, the program then showed clip after clip of absent winners whose statuettes were claimed by stand-in stars at past ceremonies. It's true that the Globes WERE guilty of that practice sometimes, but the L.A. and N.Y. film critics are guilty of it today, at least with honorary awards. They've also been caught doing the same thing with competitive awards throughout their histories. When "The Great Dictator" star Charlie Chaplin heard that the N.Y. film critics wanted to give him their Best Actor award in 1941 because they heard he was in town at the Waldorf-Astoria and would be "a swell free attraction for us," according to a New York Times writer, Chaplin snubbed their ceremony and sent a page boy with an insulting message.

The Globes are certainly guilty of a few doozies, though, including that notorious Pia Zadora gaffe, but the Trio TV special only chose to cover the damning side of that story. It didn't bother to mention what a serious shooting star Zadora really was in 1981. Playboy called her "Zadorable" and Variety gave her a better review in her debut film, "Butterfly," than costars Orson Welles and Stacy Keach (she "registers well with her little girl looks and Lolita sensuality," Variety gushed). Her music album was zooming up the charts back then, cheered on even by Leonard Feather, the notoriously cranky music critic of the L.A. Times, who insisted, "She has it all -- the range, the expert intonation." Zadora's singing talents were so impressive that her tycoon sugar daddy, Mashulem Riklis, flew members of the HFPA to Las Vegas to see her perform live at his casino. No doubt that personal touch helped her to win, but face-to-face wooing has a long, noble history in awards lore, dating back to the second Oscar year when Mary Pickford lobbied voters to give her their Best Actress award in 1929 so she could claim that she'd successfully made the crossover to talkies despite receiving vicious reviews for "Coquette." She invited voters to Pickfair -- the estate she shared with hubby Doug Fairbanks, president of the Oscar's film academy -- where she served tea to them … and no doubt purred coquettishly. She won.

The Oscars somehow manage to transcend their scandals, however, and still manage to maintain their sacred luster as Hollywood's Holy Grail. But how can that be? What justice is there, really, in a world where Goldie Hawn has an Oscar, but Richard Burton went to his grave as the award's biggest loser?

Hollywood's other top kudos are no better, frankly. The Beatles and Elvis Presley never won Grammy's award for Record of the Year, but the Fifth Dimension won TWICE. Television's "Great One," Jackie Gleason, never won an Emmy and the costar of TV's greatest series - "I Love Lucy" - was never even nominated.

The reason for the latter snub is probably what's behind the Globes-bashing, too. Desi Arnaz was a foreigner, a Cuban band star lost and unloved in white-bread Hollywood where he ultimately succeeded only because he produced his own TV show and created his own film and TV studio.

That's what members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have done with the Golden Globes, a roster of winners so impressive the Oscar voters swipe them freely. But, in response, alas, most American media can only respond with swipes.

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NOTE: These views are those of Tom O'Neil ONLY and do NOT necessarily reflect other journalists who contribute to GoldDerby.com