I Want To Thank All The Little People

I always liked them, especially the big 4: The Oscars, The Tonys, The Grammys & The Emmys. I started with the Academy Awards when I was 5 years old & have rarely missed watching them in the past 50 years. When I was a youth, I would practice accepting awards by holding a large & heavy candle holder while giving my much practiced speech to the bathroom mirror. It would seem a bit self aggrandizing for a kid to start practicing to accept a major award, but my tastes were rather modest. My most coveted prize was a Tony for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical, but I was up for taking whatever anyone would give me. I would even be willing to share Best Original Screenplay with my buddy like Matt Damon.

I am not sure when I was so won over by The Golden Globes, but this award show seems like the best party in Hollywood. The Oscars are polite, stiff & sober. I like the stars sitting at tables & drinking booze on empty stomachs. In their better days, the Oscars took place at a gala dinner, spawning classic newsreel footage of the stars breaking bread & looking like a big happy family. Now they appear like surly group of a lined up for questioning at the Kodak Theatre. The Globes extend the golden age of Hollywood.

The acceptance speeches seem looser & there is the wonderful chance that something may go wrong, or something untoward will be uttered. I also like the TV & Film folks are pulled together & the line between the 2 media is blurred. Who knows who these Hollywood Foreign Press voters are? The mystery of the membership makes the awards even more fun & less serious than the Oscars. & I really enjoy this awards evening because of the treasured memory of Back in 1981, the Globes reached a peculiar zenith when the mega-untalented Pia Zadora took the Newcomer of the Year prize for her performance in Butterfly, a movie that hadn't even been released. By the association's own rules, that should have made her ineligible. As it happened, Zadora's husband, zillionaire Meshulam Riklis, jetted members of the association into his casino in Las Vegas shortly before the voting & threw them at a lavish lunch with tasty gift bags. He also spent a bunch of money on advertising to lobby for his wife's award. I like the idea that if I really wanted to win a Golden Globe, my rich Daddy could buy me one.