Oscar Night

          The Oscars used to be such a big deal for me. Especially in the 1980s when I bought a gigantic Encyclopedia of Cinema that listed all my grandfather’s films.   He was Gibson Gowland, a character actor in the early days of Hollywood, playing many parts in D.W. Griffith’s huge productions of Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. But he is best known in the United States as the lead in Erich von Stroheim’s Greed.  The film was originally eight hours long, which was extremely rare in 1927 the year it came out.

          Set in San Francisco it is the story of a middle class dentist who marries a woman obsessed with money. I remember the scene where the wife, played by Zasu Pitt, empties a bag of coins onto the wire-frame bed, and rolls around on it, her thigh-long hair tangling around her.  Parts of the movie were shot in Death Valley. These were the days before air conditioning and the parched lips of my grandfather and his co-star Gene Hershel (for whom the Humanitarian award is named) were real.

          Gibson returned to England when talkies came in. He had a thick Northumberland accent that was better understood in its native land. I never knew him.  He died the year before I was born, alone, in a one-room apartment in London, aged 77.

          My father, whose first love – and profession – was photography, worked as a “dress extra” in Hollywood in the 1930s.  He was tall and handsome and looked great in a tux or a military uniform.  His career was cut short by the war. He became a photographer at North American Aviation, before finally being stationed in Germany during The Occupation.

          My sister Ann was destined to be an actress. At the age of three she played the daughter of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. She was scheduled for a call-back, when she was about seven, when she disobeyed my mother and rode her tricycle, while my mother was on the phone.  Her friend pushing from behind, Ann tried to break with the pedals but her foot got caught in the spokes and she was thrown from the trike, breaking her leg.

          The closest I got to being in the movies was when my father paid $200.00, a large sum back in 1967, for me to be in the Extras Guild. I was in four movies. The only one I remember was “Airport”, where I got to wear the most luxurious camels hair coat and stand looking out at the runway, in Airport.  In the scene  Helen Hayes passes through the airport.       

          Next, I went on a call that required the prospective extras to stand in a line, in bikinis, by a pool of an indoor set. There were probably twelve of us – eighteen to twenty year olds.  I hated standing in that line being scrutinized and when I was told I should come back tomorrow for the shoot I had a feeling dread. I didn’t sleep that night. In the morning I called in sick, making my voice raspy. Then, panicking I decided to walk to my sister’s apartment on

Ocean Avenue

, at least a mile away.

          Why didn’t I drive? My parents could have thought I was going to work? I’ve asked myself this many times over the years. My only excuse is that I was really scared of my father’s reaction. He had only gotten upset twice in my life – as opposed to my mother who periodically lost her temper and became like a crazed fire-breathing dragon for ten minutes then collapsed in a heap.

          Suffice it to say, this was the end of my movie career. I would go on to community theater both in high school and as an adult, but as for movies: nix on pix.

          However, this did not mean that my connection with Hollywood was gone. My sister married a sound engineer who has three Oscars. My niece was a assistant director before she moved back east. My best friend married a film composer who probably would have won an Oscar if he hadn’t dropped dead at the age of 46. I even got to go to the Razzy's once.

          Plus, I was in love with a line-director (whatever that is) whose Facebook photo has him holding a gigantic, manly cinematography camera. 

          In conclusion: even though I have not seen any of the movies that are nominated for Oscars this year, I’ll watch the show. It’s a family tradition.