Oscar & Me

[gypsysoul]

With the oscars coming up on Sunday I thought I'd share a little article I wrote about the awards.

OSCAR & ME

So you’ve seen all the big movies and know who you think should win. But how do you get to the Oscars without a nomination or a blood tie to Mr Spielberg?
Like many film buffs it was a question that plagued me often as I sat at home in front of the television every year watching the most glamorous event in the world.
What would it be like, I dreamed, to be in the midst of all that glamour, all that glitz, all that silicone…?

There was only one way to find out.
A few pleading calls and emails suggesting my well connected Hollywood friends sell their first born to get me the right invite. And hey presto! Quicker than you can say ‘blackmail’ ‘threat’ or ‘I’ve got the photographs’, I had my magic pass.

One minute I was in cold grey London and the next I’m strolling up the red carpet alongside the good the great and the beautiful seeing first hand why they call this business ‘show’.
The Oscars is the one night of the year when every actor looks every inch a movie star.

The whole thing starts in the middle of the afternoon but has the feel of a dream throughout. You see more superstars than you can shake a designer clutch bag at.
Heck, you can’t move for tripping over a megastar.
Virtually everyone you’ve ever seen up on the silver screen in the past 10 years flashes before your eyes as you make your way up the red carpet.
Quite honestly, where is a girl to look?
If you turn to the left and see Julia, you’ll miss Mr Hanks who is passing on your right and you almost certainly won’t be able to swear that it was indeed Clint who brushed past you and not just one of his minders. There’s Renee over there, Nicole over here, Affleck’s head just visible beyond the cameras and oh my God, Tom Cruise coming right at you!

As I queued at the security desk, the first bit of unreality hit. I turned round to speak to the person stepping on my dress and there was Catherine Zeta Jones, looking very elegant, very Ava Gardener and unfortunately very overdone.
Sorry Cathy but you really don’t need all
that stage slap, you’re beautiful enough without it. I was very tempted to remind the poor girl of the first rule of makeup -blend, blend and BLEND! But I settled for a timid “excuse me but you’re standing on my dress.”
Of-course Michael was there at her side. This is a couple joined at the hip after all.

Catherine is a healthy girl but most of the actresses though much prettier in the flesh than on screen were frighteningly skinny and surprisingly tiny.
Most were perfectly styled too, eschewing the daring of a Cher who in previous years always took the prize for most outrageous outfit. The last woman to give Cher a run for her money was Bjork who not only wore a ‘swan dress’ but also managed to lay an egg when she dropped her oval handbag on the floor for the photographers!


The women around me were all beautiful but there was a real dearth of good-looking men.
Any guys out there who are halfway decent looking and heterosexual, should, I suggest, make a beeline for Hollywood on a night like this. I guarantee you’d be mobbed!

There’s no doubt there is a way of working the red carpet and you either have it or you don’t. Julia Roberts can work it like no-one else.
Whatever star quality is, Ms Roberts has it in bucket-loads. Her smile alone is enough to light up the whole of tinseltown.
Likewise, gladiator Russell Crowe. He may be a little frayed around the edges close up and needs a session in the gym but the man is just drenched in charisma and has what many claim but few really have – sex appeal.

Ultimately, as I watched the many, many stars around me, I began to understand why some make it big and others don’t despite greater talent or better looks. The superstars have an aura around them that cannot be diminished by a bad outfit or a flop film.

*

After the show come the parties. There are dozens of them being held all over the city. Everyone in Hollywood is either ‘in the business,’ or desperately trying to get into it. So, even a get together of mates with a few packets of potato chips turns into ‘an Oscar party.’

The big ones of course are the ones the biggest stars attend. Unless you’re carrying an Oscar or on the arm of someone who is, it’s pretty impossible to get into one of these. Security is tighter than a gnat’s you what. Rottweilers masquerading as PR girls are on the desks where you have to ‘register’ and provide practically your entire life history in order to get in for a quick canapé and a gawp at Halle Berry
My friend and I managed to get into a few including Elton Johns bash (it wasn’t that great, dull guests and sticky beer all over the floor – we left after 10 minutes).
It was more entertaining to go outside and watch several very big celebrities having considerable difficulty convincing the dragons at the door that they really were who they claimed to be!

The night by this stage was getting even more star studded by the minute, so much so that I found myself getting blasé. Television stars? Pah! I couldn’t get myself worked up about the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker or Niles from Frasier. Not even the appearance of my favourite tennis player Boris Becker got much of a reaction out of me. Bona fide movie stars were what I was after.
And boy were they coming at me from all angles. Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep et al.
Somewhere along the line I ended up sharing travel tips with Annette Bening and Warren Beatty and chatting about foot and mouth disease with Dustin Hoffman!

The whole thing was still going strong at 5am the next morning when we decided to call it a day and headed home. By this time it became clear that many of my new best friends had been indulging in illegal substances. The conversations were getting more and more bizarre and some people were having difficulty standing up straight and focusing.
All in all it was a pretty surreal experience, which somehow seemed more real when I saw it on television the next morning!