Michael Douglas by Marc Eliot

Author:Marc Eliot [Eliot, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-95238-7
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2012-09-17T16:00:00+00:00

THE SIXTIETH ANNUAL Academy Awards ceremonies were held on April 11, 1988, at the Shrine Auditorium, adjacent to the USC campus, where they had been moved to accommodate the award show’s red carpet, which every year kept attracting larger crowds. The ceremonies, hosted by Chevy Chase, opened with a listless version of “I Hope I Get It” from A Chorus Line that was as dull as it was when the movie itself was released two years earlier, as it played to a half-filled venue due to a massive L.A. traffic jam.

The nominees for Best Picture of the year were Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, James L. Brooks’s Broadcast News, Fatal Attraction, John Boorman’s Hope and Glory, and Moonstruck. The two films that dominated the awards that night were The Last Emperor (a box office failure, something the Academy normally shuns), which won all nine Oscars it was nominated for, including Best Picture, and Moonstruck, which was nominated for six and won three, including Cher for Best Actress, Olympia Dukakis for Best Supporting Actress, and John Patrick Shanley for Best Screenplay. Fatal Attraction received six nominations, including one for Glenn Close for Best Actress, one for Anne Archer for Best Supporting Actress, and one for Best Picture, and won none. Michael was nominated for Best Actor for Wall Street but not for Fatal Attraction.8

As the evening dragged on and Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor piled up wins, both the Fatal Attraction people and the Wall Street crowd began to noticeably fidget in their seats. When it was time for the Best Actor Award to be given, Marlee Matlin, the hearing-impaired actress who had won a Best Actress Oscar the previous year for her performance in Randa Haines’s Children of a Lesser God, did the presenting. After signing a quick introduction about the joys of acting, she vocally announced the names herself. The first belonged to William Hurt, who received a light round of applause—he was not in attendance and not especially well liked in Hollywood. The second was Michael Douglas (for Wall Street), to whom the audience gave a noticeably louder cheer than it had for Hurt. Dressed resplendently in black tie, with long, flowing hair neatly pushed into place and hanging over his collar, Michael smiled to the crowd and the camera. Matlin’s enthusiastic reading of Robin Williams’s name for Good Morning, Vietnam brought even louder cheers, mostly of appreciation for her struggle with this difficult-for-her title. She then announced Marcello Mastroianni, a crowd favorite who also wasn’t there, and finally Jack Nicholson, for Hector Babenco’s Ironweed. Nicholson received the loudest ovation. Dressed in a tux and wearing his signature dark glasses, Nicholson flashed his signature grin.

And then Matlin ripped open the envelope, said softly, in her special way, “Let’s see,” then spread her arms wide and announced, “Michael Douglas in Wall Street!”

The audience erupted. Michael stood up, bent over to kiss Diandra, and shook the outstretched hand of comedian and actor Albert Brooks, who minutes earlier had lost the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work in Broadcast News to Sean Connery, for The Untouchables.

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