Going global: Jacki works Oscar crowd (George mention)

Lawrie Masterton Sunday Herald Sun January 15, 2011

If you tend to disregard awards as meaningless, take a look at the movie advertisements in the Herald Sun later this week. One or more titles will be marketed to you as "Winner of four Golden Globe Awards", or similar. Those movies will experience a box-office spike.

Some Hollywood publicists, who do extremely well for themselves, base their year-round existence on being able to secure big awards nominations for movies or individuals, or both, then translate the nominations into statuettes of some shape or form.

Those people pretty much live day-in, day-out, all year with members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and other Hollywood guilds such as the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America.

I had 12 years as a member and executive of the HFPA. Some of those people became my friends . . . and no doubt would be again were I back in Hollywood. But, now more than a year removed, I am merely an associate (non-voting) member of the HFPA, though I still receive via email many of the invitations to screenings, parties and other functions, plus expressions of gratitude from nominees.

Ron Meyer, the all-powerful president and chief executive of NBC-Universal, emailed before last year's Golden Globes that he was "grateful for your recognition" of a comedy called It's Complicated.

And I was going to save this one for my memoirs, but what the hell. It also arrived before last year's show:

"Dear Lawrie, I just wanted to send a note to say thank you for my being nominated. You've always been very kind to me and I don't want you to think it's not appreciated. It's been a pretty difficult holiday season for me and this nomination is one of the few bright spots. So I'm looking forward to getting out and having a fun night with you and grab a couple of drinks. If you don't recognise me, I'll be the old guy with the grey beard. Thanks again and I'll see you on the 17th. George."

That would be George Clooney, through his long-time publicist, Stan Rosenfield.

This year the A-list producer Richard D. Zanuck wished me a "joyous holiday season", oh, and thanks for the nomination for Alice in Wonderland.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, a partner in DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen and the driving force behind the studio's animated movies, used to call every year: "Just checking in to say hello. I know it's a busy time for you guys. I hope you've had a chance to see the latest Shrek".

I used to think it was pretty impressive for a bloke from a place called Kangaroo Flat to be getting those calls.

On the subject of awards and publicists, at some point during the Golden Globes tomorrow someone may bow their head in memory of Ronni Chasen, whose clientele was mainly movie score composers, many of whom credit her with helping them win major awards.

Chasen was shot dead, apparently randomly, in her car in Beverly Hills on November 16 last year. On November 19, I received an email from Jeff Sanderson in her office reminding me about a reception at a West Hollywood hotel later that day for "music legend" Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who co-composed the music for The Social Network.

Chasen would have been proud of Sanderson for getting on with his job during the season. Reznor and Ross are among The Social Network's myriad nominees tomorrow.

The season has prompted some other remarkable events, usually not well publicised.

If you think you had a decent seat for U2 at Etihad Stadium, I have seen Bono and The Edge perform their song The Hands that Built America, from Martin Scorsese's film Gangs of New York (2002), in the privacy of a hotel suite overlooking Central Park in New York.

The song landed the Golden Globe-Oscar nominations double and won the Golden Globe. I have sat a metre away from other artists such as Sting, Garth Brooks and Paul Simon for mine, one of the great composers of the 20th century as they've performed live for the HFPA and only for the HFPA, an audience of about 90 souls.

Only during the season and for reasons of perception and propriety, the HFPA has since banned such performances.

The Academy Awards nominations, by the way, will be announced at 5.30am (Los Angeles time) on January 25.

It's done that way to catch the prime, final half-hour of the morning TV shows in New York, where it will be 8.30.