This year's Academy Awards, like most recent ceremonies, struck me as conspicuously devoid of star power, above and beyond the folks who were there because they might be receiving an Oscar. And the ones who were there for other reasons were seen over and over and over. It might have been a small but thrilling moment to have Jack Nicholson come out to present Best Picture but by that point in the telecast, we'd seen Nicholson eighty times in audience cutaway shots and Ellen DeGeneres had acknowledged him from the stage once or twice. So it was like, "Nicholson? Big deal."
I asked here who there is around who might have been a big deal as an Oscar presenter and I asked it in two categories. Who would have been exciting to see who represented "Old Hollywood?" And who of our current pantheon of stars would have given you a tingle if they'd suddenly been announced? Here are some of the names I received in the first category…
Jean-Paul Belmondo, Sidney Poitier, Brigitte Bardot, Karl Malden, Shirley Temple, Ricardo Montalban, Tony Martin, Sophia Loren, Olivia DeHavilland, Cyd Charisse, Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Russell, Celeste Holm, Kirk Douglas, Joan Fontaine, Deborah Kerr, Richard Widmark, Paul Scofield, Kathryn Grayson, Jerry Lewis, Betty Hutton, Lena Horne, Deanna Durbin and Van Johnson
The two most often-mentioned names were Doris Day and Mickey Rooney. Based on my admittedly-limited encounters with both, I would guess the following: That if you went to Doris Day and said, "Either you appear in front of a live audience or every man, woman and child in the state of Ohio will die," she would shrug and say, "Goodbye, Columbus." And if you put Mickey Rooney up there, he'd still be talking about the days when he was the biggest box office star in the world and you could go into the MGM Commissary and see the lovely Miss Judy Garland order a chicken salad sandwich.
A number of you also mentioned Charles Lane. I think it would be better if we waited until he got a little older.
Many of the suggestions were for interesting teams…like Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig all presenting an award together. Of course, that would mean taking Lazenby away from his job as a seat filler.
Other teams put forth: Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. Robert Redford and Paul Newman. Almost anyone and Paul Newman. Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams.
In the category of Newer Hollywood, I got very few responses, mostly duos from hit movies — Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, the cast of Ocean's 13, etc. I suspect the Oscars may already be doing as well as they can in this area.
A couple of people asked what I thought would happen if the surprise presenter in the Best Director category was Roman Polanski. I think it would depend on whether he was brought on in handcuffs…but the response would have been interesting. Would people hesitate to applaud a man convicted of statutory rape? Or would they have figured that if it's okay for him to win that Oscar, it's okay for him to present it? I dunno. What I think would have upset many is if he'd "appeared" via satellite link the way he testified in that libel suit he brought against the magazine, Vanity Fair.
Thanks to all of you who sent in suggestions, even the joke ones like Tony Clifton, Ron Jeremy and me. My favorite suggestion, by the way, was from the person who wanted to see Shirley Jones and Marty Ingels present an Oscar. I think that would have been wonderful. Imagine that moment when they announce Marty Ingels and every single person in the Kodak Theater gets up and walks out.