Confessions Of An Award-Loser

It was in 1991. My brother and I were nominated for a TV movie called The Incident. We rented a limo and brought along some champagne and felt like the Epstein Brothers, instead of just the Norell Brothers. It was heady stuff.

When it came to the moment of truth, however, both of us were seized up with terror, not of losing, but of winning. For one thing, it hit us that we'd have to make a speech in front of 50 million people.

For another, we were wearing rented tuxes that came with patent leather pumps that didn't get any traction on the carpeting they had in the aisle of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, so we were scared silly that if we won we'd fall down and wouldn't be able to get back up. Since there was a cameraman crouched right in front of us at the time, the Norell boys flopping around in the aisle like a couple of trout would be beamed right into our mom's cubicle at the Home and she'd have one of her spells. So we were more relieved than disappointed when John Larouquette said Terrence McNally's name and not ours.

It was only later at the dinner that we got jealous. There was the producer of our movie parading around like King Farouk with his Emmy, having failed in his acceptance speech to mention that there might have been a script before there was a movie, written by two fine, strapping Swedish brothers who after all did win the WGA Award and the Christopher for the same piece of work, but hey, let's not be bitchy about this. Every producer needs a statuette on his mantelpiece that's taller than he is.

Before the Emmy loss, there was an Ace Award loss. The nomination was for a movie called Long Gone that I'd written for HBO, based on a novel by Paul Hemphill. It was reviewed as an "antic, cheerily foul-mouthed baseball comedy" by Variety and called by Sports Illustrated the best baseball movie ever made. It got nominated for nine Ace Awards, a bunch for acting (Dermot Mulroney and Virginia Madson), a bunch for editing and set decorating, and the big three: Best Teleplay, Best Director and Best Picture.

I don't remember where they held the event. Downtown at the Wiltern Theatre, I don't know. The actors who'd been nominated were off in some section with only pretty people in it, so I didn't see any of them. I was sitting right behind Alan Landsburg, the executive producer, Joan Barnett, the producer, and Marty Davidson, the director.

Up to the final three awards, Long Gone was shut out, on the Schneid. Well, what could you expect? A&E had been allowed to submit a whole slew of British feature films they'd aired. So Dermot Mulroney was up against Laurence Olivier in Henry V, I think it was; Virginia Madson was going against Martita Hunt in Great Expectations. I could be wrong, but I think I was nominated against Robert Bolt and Oliver Goldsmith. I figured we'd all recite our speeches to each other at the dinner and go home.

The first of the Big Three was Best Writer. I started seeing black spots. My heart rate edged up into tachycardia. I began to hyperventilate. Bobcat Goldthwait was the presenter. He rambled on in his strangulated way for what seemed like an hour-and-a-half, then finally read off the nominees (and if you've never had your name spoken in public by Bobcat Goldthwait, you haven't really suffered). Finally he opened the envelope. My mind was churning: "Please, God, let it be me. I'll stop smoking. I'll do good works. I'll help out with the homeless. I'll give to AIDS research. Pleeeease. I WANT TO WIN!"

I'm a little hazy on this, because you understand I was this far from a stroke, but I think I lost to Noel Coward. A&E must have aired Brief Encounter. Since Sir Noel was deceased at the time, Bobcat accepted the award on his behalf. I sagged in my seat, palsied, chest heaving, weak as a baby. Someone told me later she thought I'd swallowed my tongue.

By now they were presenting Best Director. Marty Davidson was so nervous you could see the whole row of seats shake. The sweat was pouring off his head. The way things had been going, I was sure he didn't have a chance anyway, nominated as he was against Erich von Stroheim and the Lumiere Brothers. But I'll be damned if he didn't win. I was glad for him. He lurched down the aisle and onto the stage for his acceptance speech. All right, he didn't mention me (pretty much par for the course by now), but the man was a pile of wetwash up there with a voice coming out of it, and I don't think he knew his own name at that moment. As he staggered deliriously into the wings, some star or other came out to present Best Picture. And that's when it hit me:

If the director wins, the picture wins and the writer loses, you don't have to be J. Robert Oppenheimer to see the implication: that a resourceful producer had hired a brilliant director to make a transcendent movie out of some rancid mediocrity of a script, or (as Paul Hemphill actually believed) they had walked onto the set with the novel and said, okay, which chapter shall we shoot today. It came down to a single, naked fact: if they win and I don't, I am a SCHMUCK!

But wait. If the picture loses too, then Marty winning could be viewed as an aberration; the voters had rebelled in just this one category against the Brit onslaught and struck a blow for America. Marty's winning could be seen as something admirable, even patriotic.

I guess as honorable and loyal and nice as we think we are, there is some chromosome in us that controls egregious self-serving behavior. So while the nominees were being reeled off, with a little film clip from each one, I started silently rooting for anything but Long Gone to win. "Pleeeease, God, don't let it win. I'll be a better person. I'll give to the Actor's Home, I'll go to church, I'll really stop smoking, I'll do anything." Alan Landsburg and Joan Barnett, their hopes buoyed by Marty's unexpected win, clutched each other's hands, piteously eager (at least would they have mentioned me, I do know that much), and there I was, trying to will them to lose.

I don't have the faintest memory of what actually won. The Red Shoes, probably. My memory might be playing tricks on me, but the words stick in my mind: "Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger can't be here tonight to accept their award . . ."

Years ago, I went to Santa Anita with a friend of mine who was a professional handicapper. He had a tip on a horse in the ninth race and put down five thousand dollars. I don't know a thing about horse-racing, but I scanned the entries and saw a 50-1 shot in the same race owned by Roy Rogers, so I bet 10 dollars on him. Of course he won. And I was dumb enough to suppose my friend would think it was kind of cute. Instead, he called me a back-stabbing sonofabitch and never spoke to me again. So please don't show this to Alan Landsburg or Joan Barnett.