It couldn’t get much better for Helen Hunt. Not only did she win the Best Actress award for “As Good As It Gets,” she renewed her contract for the NBC sitcom “Mad About You.” She’ll reportedly earn about $1 million per episode.
“Its thinner and without wings,” Hunt quipped when asked the difference between the Oscar and her two “Mad About You” Emmy Awards.
Hunt added she was glad that performers were no longer confined to working in television or the movies.
“The sort of blacklist that used to exist between television and movies doesn’t exist anymore,” she said, crediting the casting of Mary Tyler Moore in “Ordinary People” for setting a precedent. “I think people realize that work is work.”
Hunt was well composed as she told the room, “You can’t be an actress and not dream of this moment. It’s a dream come true.”
She was less effusive in responding to a questioner who wondered how she chose her dress. “I saw it and I liked it and I wore it,” she said. “Good story, huh?”
Bare essentials: Danny Elfman, who led the ’80s New Wave band Oingo Boingo, may have received two music nominations — for his soundtracks for “Good Will Hunting” and “Men in Black.” But Anne Dudley, who wrote the Oscar-winning score of “The Full Monty,” has quirky rock roots as well: She’s a member of the one of the early electronic-based groups, the Art of Noise.
Dudley said she wasn’t too enthusiastic when presented the opportunity to score a movie about five guys stripping.
“When my agent called me, I thought, `We’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here,’ ” she said. “It didn’t sound very promising. But it’s a lot more than a movie about five guys stripping.”
No misstep: Lifetime Achievement winner Stanley Donen, who performed a charming song-and-dance when accepting his award, said afterward that he became nervous when he saw Billy Crystal open the show with his own musical performance. Still, he didn’t change his plans.
“I came up with singing and dancing because I’ve done a lot of that, and that’s how I wanted to thank (everyone).”
As for the meaning of his award, he said, “In the words of Sally Field, it means they like me.”
Titanic reception: Outside the auditorium before the show began, the crowd was most eager to see anyone associated with a certain sinking ship movie. Red Buttons, who sank in “The Poseidon Adventure” of decades past, caught the spirit of the evening when he told interviewer Army Archerd, “I’ve changed my name: Leonardo DiButtons.”
“Titanic” star Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t show up, much to the disappointment of legions of young females, but the fans were happy to give director James Cameron a hero’s welcome and to squeal for Best Supporting Actress nominee Gloria Stuart and Best Actress nominee Kate Winslet. Like Rose, the character they play, both actresses wore stunning blue diamonds around their necks and smiles on their faces.
Technical foul: A less-happy bunch was gathered across the street: Technical workers engaged in a labor dispute with ABC-TV — and thus not employed for the show — were holding a protest with balloons bearing the message “It’s our work.” From the bleachers, even this demonstration seemed like another bit of Oscar pageantry.
Fans had gathered to gape, and others bore messages, some religious and apocalyptic. A middle-aged African-American held a placard that read, “Al Jacobs, singer-guitarist. Let me sing your soundtracks.”
Bleacher bums: Mary Dowding, a radiation therapist from Orland Park, arrived in the bleachers Sunday morning. She’d spent the night in a sleeping bag on the floor there, and the restaurant chain supplying fast food took the day off Monday, but she still wasn’t complaining.
“For me this is a once in a lifetime experience,” she enthused. “I want to see what Matt Damon is wearing.”
The bleachers crowd was overwhelmingly white, and many became human billboards as a television entertainment show and a cosmetics company lavished hats, shirts and much-needed fans on the audience members in camera range.
Sour note: One of the snarkier moments backstage took place when someone asked James Horner, the composer of the Oscar-winning score and song “My Heart Will Go On” from “Titanic,” to respond to the idea that Enya should sue him for the similarity of his music to hers.
“No, I have not heard from Enya,” he snapped. “Almost anything that’s Irish that has a woman’s voice in it is going to sound like Enya, so it’s a non-issue.”
Stars struck: As the parade of celebrities made their way into the auditorium, the Oscar-winning stars of yesterday rubbed tuxes and gowns with the biggest names of today, creating a scene familiar to Los Angelinos: a traffic jam.
“We have to ask everyone to please move into the theater,” Archerd barked into the microphone more than once. “No one can get onto the red carpet.”
Helen Hunt, Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin, Jeremy Irons, Geena Davis, Madonna and Meg Ryan with Dennis Quaid nearly piled on top of each other, and the cheering crowd couldn’t snap photos fast enough.
Drew Barrymore told Archerd, “I’ve got my glitter for glamor and my flowers for earth, so I’m very balanced.”
Earlier Archerd asked Jack Palance, “Do you think you’re still up to doing a one-armed pushup?”
Palance replied, “If you do one first.”
Archerd: “Are you working on a movie?”
Palance: “No, I’ve gone back to working in a coal mine.”
Nostalgia: This year’s pageant was a celebration of comebacks, with a batch of nominees who had been largely forgotten, including Peter Fonda, Julie Christie, Robert Forster and the 87-year-old Gloria Stuart. The nostalgia theme extended to the ceremony’s invitation list. The Academy invited every living winner of the supporting and lead acting awards.
