HFPA

MICHAEL FOX 1999-2013 on Parkinson’s and journalism
Quotes selected and edited by Elisa Leonelli
April 19, 2023
Out of the Archives-Golden Globes website (not published)

Michael J. Fox, a 4 times Golden Globe winner out of 13 nominations for his acting in the movie Back to the Future (1985), the TV series Family Ties (1985-1989) and Spin City (1996-2002), spoke to the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press in 1999 about his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, which he received in 1991 but did not disclose publicly until 1998, and in 2013 about what he learnt about journalism from playing a TV reporter dealing with Parkinson’s in The Michael J. Fox Show.
The documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie directed by Davis Guggenheim premiered at Sundance on January 20, 2023 (link to Brent’s review) and will stream on Apple TV as of May 12.

In 1999 Michael J. Fox spoke about how the public reacted when he started talking about dealing with Parkinson’s disease: “At first I was very selfish, because people wanted me to be a spokesman for the disease, and I said, ‘Cut me a little slack here.’ And when I would say, ‘I feel pretty good, it’s going well, and I am happy about that,’ I actually got some flak from the PD (Parkinson’s Disease) Community, because people would say, ‘You’re making it hard for all of us if you say you feel great.’ But I do feel great emotionally, so I really don’t know how else to put it. As time went on, I started to see the impact that it had on some people, that it gave them the courage to talk about it, it changed the way that other people approached them and dealt with them, and that was a great thing. So then I started to view it as a real privilege and a great opportunity.”

On September 29, 1999, Michael J. Fox testified at a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing on research and treatment for Parkinson’s disease, but he was not sure of the outcome: “You never know with Congress. We were successful on some levels. They had passed what is called the Utah Bill, which said that they were going to put $100 million into Parkinson’s research, so everybody could pat themselves on the back and be heroes, but then nobody found the money.  So what we were trying to do in Washington was to say that this bill was on the record, so let’s put the money into it, and we got some assurances, but then some people back-pedaled off a little bit. At the very least what we did was to raise awareness of the disparity in funding for different illnesses, and make people understand that the government can throw more money at something by accident than the private sector can on purpose. I mean, we’re talking about billions and billions of dollars, so for the cost of an aircraft carrier you could wipe out a lot of diseases.”

The actor explained why he seemed so nervous while speaking to Congress in Washington: “What was tricky about that was that I had to make a decision about whether or not I took any medication. When you normally see me, I take medication, but if I’m going to go in front of the Committee to talk about what the experience of Parkinson’s is like and I sit there stock still, I’m not making the point. So what you detected as nervousness was another thing, I didn’t have any medication and I was not really comfortable. Before I went public with it, I’d do interviews and I would read afterwards, ‘Michael was very nervous, he fidgeted, walked around the room,’ while I was as calm as an execution, but when your outsides don’t match your insides, it’s a really tricky thing. My disease is actually no worse than it was two years ago, but the way you saw it was without medication. So I was able to get the message across and talk about my situation.”

The last thing Fox wanted was for people to feel pity for him, because he felt that he was in a privileged position: “My biggest fear was that everyone would pity me, because if you allow yourself to be pitied, you allow yourself to be abused, and I haven’t felt that at all. I’m so used to it now that it’s not depressing for me, so it’s interesting, I keep waiting to wake up one day and go: ‘God, this is terrible,’ but I just don’t. I see my kids, I see my wife and I have confidence that something is going to be figured out soon. I also realize my potential role in how can you speed that process up, and that’s a tremendous privilege to be able to do that, in a way there’s something special about it. When you have as many blessings as I’ve had and as many wonderful things happen to you, if God doesn’t give you something to balance it out, you’re missing the full experience.”

The actor-producer had maintained the same positive attitude when he spoke to HFPA 14 years later in 2013 and expressed what he wished to convey with The Michael J. Fox Show: “Certainly I’d like people to get what I’ve been talking about, that you get travails that you have to deal with, hardships that you face; but life is a celebration, especially through family, through optimism and dealing with things as they really are for you, not as you wish they would be or as others see them. Then you can have a full life. We all have our own issues, our own problems, so if some people watch the show and say: ‘Yeah, I can get through this. I can rely on my family. I can rely on myself. I can rely on the likelihood that things will get better than worse,’ if I can send that message to people, that’s great.”

Fox also talked in 2013 about the progress made by his foundation, that he started in the year 2000 to help fund research on Parkinson’s: “Anytime you’re dealing with the brain, there’s a lot of crossover and cooperation between foundations and between researchers, and we’re trying to promote that even more. What happens a lot of times with individual diseases or conditions is that the research tends to stack up on top of itself. I mean, there’s government research and academic research and pharmaceutical research and it doesn’t go anywhere. So we’re trying to tip those silos over and turn them into pipelines to get this stuff moving and get pharma involved to find some answers. And as we do that, we’ll uncover things that affect MS (Multiple Sclerosis), ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), Alzheimer’s and all kinds of neurological diseases. So that’s our hope for the future, that we’ll all benefit from a new understanding of the brain.”

And for us journalists, after playing a news anchor for New York’s MSNBC, Fox had some thoughts about our changing profession: “It’s hard for me to speak about it, because I’m not an expert on that, but journalism, as you all know, takes so many forms now. It’s internet and social media, so there’s a responsibility on the viewer to pick their sources very carefully. You can find any source that will skew towards what you think and reinforce your views. We have a tendency to create these echo chambers, whether it’s Fox or MSNBC or whatever, where everybody is preaching to the choir and is telling everybody what they want to hear. But you’re not getting any insight or enlightenment about what’s really happening, and that’s a dangerous thing. The key thing I would say about journalism is that it needs to be a more honest transference of information.”

 

STEVE MARTIN 1991 about Los Angeles vs New York

Quotes selected and edited by Elisa Leonelli
March 14, 2023
Out of the Archives-Golden Globes website (not published)

Steve Martin, a five time Golden Globe nominee as Best Actor for the musical/comedy movies Pennies From Heaven, All of Me, Roxanne, Parenthood, Father of the Bride II, was nominated twice as Best Actor for the comedy series Only Murders in the Building, which is set in New York City. We dipped into our extensive archives of interviews going back 50 years to read what the actor-screenwriter said about Los Angeles as different from New York to the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press in 1991 while talking about his movie L.A. Story.

A long-time resident of Los Angeles, Martin felt about the city the same way as he described in his screenplay: “That’s really what I think about Los Angeles, in the way that’s presented in the film. It took me seven years to work on the script, so my heart and soul went into it. I’ve lived here for twenty-five years, but I can’t quite tell you what I think about it, except to say that it’s in there in the movie somehow, that the feeling about Los Angeles that you walk away from the movie with, that is what I feel about the city.”

He acknowledged being inspired by Woody Allen’s movies about New York: “My comparisons with Manhattan by Woody Allen are intentional. L.A. Story is certainly supposed to be a West Coast style answer to it, in fact, when I described the movie to people, I’d say ‘It’s Manhattan West.’ So I take full responsibility for it.”

Martin added that other movies by Woody Allen offered him inspiration as well for scenes such as the shooting on the freeway: “That moment is supposed to be slightly scary, it’s in questionable taste and I knew it at the time, but I wanted to go a little further with it. I wanted the movie to be risky and dangerous and maybe push comedy a little bit. Alan Alda says in Crimes and Misdemeanors by Woody Allen ‘tragedy plus time equals comedy.’ So our movie is also satirical, it’s meant to say, ‘Look how violent this city can be.’ It’s not intended to soft-pedal everything. What was hard about it was getting the tone right, because if L.A. comes off like a mean place, then the romance isn’t going to work as well.”

He maintained that the movie is mostly a romantic love story: “The truth is that I’m not trying to be L.A.’s champion or detractor, to be a spokesman for Los Angeles. The movie happens to be set in L.A. for reasons of comedy, because I’ve lived here and that is inexorably tied to the story, but my belief is that it’s about romance. What I needed L.A. to be for the story was beautiful. I wanted the city to reflect the way the lovers feel and the way they see things. I didn’t want the ugliness of Los Angeles to come through, because that would seem to dilute that feeling. I wanted it to be a fantasy love story. And although the characters communicate and talk to each other before they actually fall in love, the movie is about love at first sight.”

Martin elaborated that the way the lovers see Los Angeles is colored by their feelings of love: “I’m trying to say something about romance, in general, and to visualize, make visible the way you feel when you’re in love. You do feel like you’re nine-years-old again, like everything’s new, like a garden where the flowers are growing and the lions are bowing. That’s really what the movie’s about to me, I don’t want to call it a fairytale, but it’s certainly mystical.”

There are many aspects of Los Angeles that were not explored in L.A. Story, and that was intentional, said Martin: “In general, the city comes off fantastic, but one could say, ‘You didn’t present the cultural side.’ Well, I didn’t present the dark side either, I didn’t show gangs of people destroying the city, and that was the challenge, to show something in this city that hadn’t been done before. Most of the movies that had been made about L.A. are about violence and murder or about Beverly Hills, because the other side is so fun to look at that that’s usually what’s covered. If you see something about L.A., it never fails that there’s a shot on Venice Beach of girls in bikinis, although that’s not entirely what the city is about. This love story couldn’t be set in any other city in the world, not even in Paris, the way it’s told is linked somehow to the city, but I don’t have a mission to show what’s cultural about L.A. That’s not why I made the movie.”

In another movie, Annie Hall, Woody Allen wrote and delivered this line about Los Angeles: ‘I don’t want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light.’ In fact, claimed Martin, L.A. is home to excellent museums: “Certainly, at least in terms of art, we have the Norton Simon Museum, the Getty Museum, L.A.C.M.A, the L.A. County Museum of Art, MOCA, Museum of Contemporary Art. There’s also a cultural center downtown, for theater and music. In New York you only have to walk eight blocks to get to it, while in L. A. you have to drive to find it, but it’s here. In New York you can meet someone and they probably live downtown, while here they may live 135 miles away, so it’s a tough place to fall in love…”

 

ELIZABETH BANKS 2008 on Laura Bush
Quotes selected and edited by Elisa Leonelli
February 5, 2023
Out of the Archives-Golden Globes website (not published)

Elizabeth Banks spoke to the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press during an exclusive 2008 interview about playing First Lady Laura Bush in W directed by Oliver Stone opposite Josh Brolin as George W. Bush. By that time she had acted in movies like Seabiscuit (2003) by Gary Ross with Jeff Bridges, The 40-Year Old Virgin (2005) by Judd Apatow with Steve Carell, Invincible (2006) with Mark Wahlberg, Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) by Kevin Smith with Seth Rogen.
The actor-director-producer recently starred opposite Sigourney Weaver in Call Jane, directed the black comedy Cocaine Bear.

The actress said she had met Laura Bush, and this is what she thought she would say to her husband: “I met George and Laura Bush at the White House in 2003. We screened the movie Seabiscuit there and George Bush told me that he hates to watch himself on television.  So, if I really were his wife, my advice to him would be that it would be a good idea if he studied himself a little bit more, because he could probably improve his on-air appearances, if he actually took the time to study himself.”

Banks confessed she was inspired by her husband, producer Max Handelman, in playing a supportive wife: “I drew a lot on my own relationship with my husband in playing Laura Bush, in that we’ve been married for five years but we’ve been together for 16 years, we have a very committed relationship, we work together producing movies and we have
a good yin and yang. He hates it when I talk about him, he is somebody who does not seek the spotlight and lets me shine, and in my experience those are the relationships that work, where somebody is wanting the best for the other person. We have to remember that Laura was involved in a fatal car accident when she was 17 years old, she essentially killed someone that she knew, he was her high school classmate, she ran a stop sign and hit this kid with her car. I really believe that this shaped her entire life, her general disinterest in being on the public stage and very specifically her desire not to answer questions, not to be put out there too much. I always thought that was the root for her actions throughout.”

The actress explained what had most impressed her about studying Laura Bush during her research: “One of the statements that stuck with me when I was researching Laura was that she said over and over again that she felt her job as First Lady, first and foremost, was to mind the emotional and psychological health of her husband, the President, so that he could do his job. ‘I’m a supportive wife. That’s what I do.’ It’s actually a very big job, when you really think about the psychology behind that statement, so in those first four years that’s what she was doing, and then he needed to get re-elected. I played her as an independent woman in that first scene, as someone who is confident, because she was 30 years old, she’d had many boyfriends, she had a life of her own. She was certainly looking to get married, because she was the oldest of her friends who was not married, but there’s never been a whiff of desperation about Laura Bush. She remains above the fray because she doesn’t pop off about things that she doesn’t know about, she doesn’t pretend to have confidence and she is not too comfortable in the public arena. George promised her she would never have to get up and give a speech when he went into political life, but that’s all she did for him, so she’s been slowly drawn out as it were.”

This is how director Oliver Stone described the role of the supportive wife to his leading lady: “When Oliver approached me, he told me about the idea of being the supportive actress of this journey, that it’s not my movie, and I really took that to heart, that I’m here to make sure that Josh has the best movie he can have, that was my mantra the whole time. I’m taking care of this man’s psychological and emotional health, so that we can seem to make it all work. I love Oliver and I had a great experience with him. I imagine he was under the stress of having only this long to shoot a movie that’s very condensed and intense, but he allowed us to go off and do our research, then come to set with our decisions made, and if he felt like it didn’t ring true, he was very clear about it and direct, which is fine with me. He’s a stickler for authenticity, which I really appreciate, I don’t need to be stroked in any way or made to feel happy or comfortable. Oliver was very straightforward, but he was essentially very supportive of our decisions.”

Banks said she agreed with Josh Brolin on how to portray the relationship between George Bush and his wife Laura: “The main decision Josh and I made was that these two people are in love, they’re in a supportive union, they have a good marriage. If we had done our research and thought that they were getting divorced as soon as they were out of the White House, we would have never been able to do those scenes together; so we were very fortunate in that we both came to the same conclusion after doing independent research that their marriage works and this is why, and hopefully that’s what we showed.”

The actress gave of her opinion as to how Laura dealt with her husband’s addiction to alcohol: “There were two schools of thought about that, because there’s a famous story of her saying, ‘It’s mere Jim Beam,’ but she also said that very late. They had a good time together, but she was not not complicit in his alcoholism, even though she loved Margaritas and a glass of wine. She agreed with AA and that sect of Christianity that, if you were going to change your life, you had to come to it on your own. In other words, she was never going to be able to convince him to give up alcohol if he didn’t want it for himself. So for the scenes in the movie that was the angle that we decided to take, which is that she’s not exactly hugging him and kissing him in the morning when he wakes up and says he’s hung-over. She’s like, ‘No kidding. Okay, what’s going on? Are you going to throw up?’ I wanted to walk a line that she is not fully tolerant of it, but she also knows that if he’s going to change his life he needs to do it on his own.”

W was shot in mid 2008 and released on October 17, three weeks before the November 4 elections that saw Barack Obama elected President, but Banks did not think it influenced the outcome. “I’m a Massachusetts Democrat from a union family, so there was really no way that my vote was changed, but what I thought that Oliver did well in this movie was that, however you felt about President George W. Bush, he did a really good job of presenting the office of the presidency, no matter who’s in it, as a really tough, hard job and that we elect these personalities to serve, but this office is all incoming madness 24/7. And Oliver is such a great student of American politics that what was in the forefront in his mind was that he loves the office of the presidency and he presented it as a pretty dramatic place.”

 

MICHELLE PFEIFFER 1995 on education
Quotes selected and edited by Elisa Leonelli
February 4, 2023
Out of the Archives-Golden Globes website (not published)

Michelle Pfeiffer, eight times Golden Globe nominee and 1990 winner as Best Actress for The Fabulous Baker Boys, spoke to the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press in 1995 about playing a teacher in Dangerous Minds, based on the 1992 memoir My Posse Don’t Do Homework by LouAnne Johnson, a former U.S. Navy journalist who for a few years worked as a teacher in a Belmont, California high school.
Pfeiffer played President Gerald Ford wife Betty in the TV series The First Lady (2022), reprised her role as the Wasp in the Marvel’s sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023).

Pfeiffer explained why she was attracted to the role of this real-life teacher and how she choose to portray her: “What inspired me was the real person, LouAnne Johnson, and her book, her spirit and her relationship with the kids. Then, after meeting her, I was very taken by how incredibly gentle and feminine she was, she had a fragility about her. She was this ex-Marine in the Navy, but not at all the stereotype that you might imagine. However, I didn’t feel it was necessary to actually imitate her, nor did she, because when you read her book you see that it’s not about her, it’s really about the kids. And it’s very important to her that it was their stories that were told, she really wasn’t that interested in telling her own story. So I just tried to be the best teacher that I could, in the way that it was written, and to stay truthful to who she was, her basic essence and the core of who she is.”

This exceptional teacher was able to get her unruly students to pay attention to her teaching, while challenging school regulations. Pfeiffer said she wished she had somebody like that when she was in high school: “LouAnne’s whole trick, the reason she’s so successful is that she doesn’t try to teach them, she enlivens their own desire and excitement to learn, their enthusiasm about learning.  Her approach is to teach them to want to learn, and until you can do that, then you can’t really teach kids anything. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anybody as exceptional as LouAnne who was able to do that with me, who had the kind of investment and energy that LouAnne had. So I was really bored and I couldn’t wait to get out, I was an absent student, I was at the beach getting a suntan. I had one acting teacher who gave me some encouragement in acting my junior year in high school, and she doesn’t even remember me, but that did play a big part in my becoming an actress. My one regret is that, even though the teacher I play in the movie is really good, it only captures a small percentage of who this woman is. I mean, she will resort to anything to get these kids to pay attention, bribery, trickery; she was constantly in trouble with the establishment, she was always fighting with the principal and the other teachers hated her at the school.”

Pfeiffer elaborated on some of the issues that plagued the educational system in the United States and the reasons why teachers had become discouraged: “I pretty much knew beforehand the general problems in our educational system, but throughout the film I gained a better understanding of what is like to be a teacher, how the teachers personal lives affected what happened in school, how they’re interrelated and you can’t separate the two. Before I did the movie I was probably more judgmental about the state of teaching today and I understand that a little more now, so I would say something simplistic, that we need better teachers. It’s not that we have bad teachers, but it’s impossible for the good teachers to teach well, because the classrooms are overcrowded, they’re understaffed, they have out-of-date textbooks, they don’t have supplies, not even xerox paper. They are very limited in terms of the curriculums that they can teach, the way in which they can go about teaching and there’s all this bureaucracy. Then on top of it all they get no money, they’re really underpaid, so they get worn down.”

The actress reluctantly proposed some solutions to the crisis in education: “I’m no authority, these are the kinds of questions that terrify me because I should have some answer which I don’t, but there are obvious things like, first of all, pay teachers more, they really should be top salary in this country and they’re bottom. There should also be a renewed commitment by parents and communities, because a lot of the social structure in this country, starting with the family, has disintegrated and I don’t know how you make up for that because you can’t legislate it. And that’s part of the problem. But I also don’t think that the solution is for the federal government to throw up their arms and say, ‘Well, it starts in the home and it’s really unconstitutional for us to federally legislate it’ or whatever. That’s not true, that is the responsibility of the government, of the state, of the community, and to disregard the amount of hours that kids spend in school from the time they’re of school age to the time that they graduate, to think that it doesn’t have a major effect on the direction and the course that their lives take, is really absurd.”

Pfeiffer had been uncomfortable about attaching her name to causes, but was prepared to do so for education: “Education has always been of importance to me. But as a celebrity you get asked to show up to a lot of events, to put your name on a lot of boards, and I’ve never really felt comfortable with that, because I always take putting my name on something seriously and I’ve never felt knowledgeable enough about any one issue to come out in support of it. Then there’s the time factor, that you can’t learn about everything, so what would be the one thing that you feel is important, and for me it’s always been education. I don’t know why, but I just feel like it’s the root of everything. If we can’t churn out thinking individuals who can make rational decisions, then really everything else is moot, because that’s the future. What I saw was a lot of decay in the educational system, kids graduating illiterate, if they graduate at all, and we are losing generations of kids. But I’ve been so busy and haven’t really had time, then this movie came along and I thought, ‘Here’s something I can do, kill two birds with one stone.’ Obviously, I don’t think that this movie is going to change the world, to turn education around on its own, but if there were more movies like this, maybe it would peak people’s interest and desire to get involved and committed, to learn more about it.”

 

GINA LOLLOBRIGIDA, addio
by Elisa Leonelli. January 16, 2023

Luigina “Gina” Lollobrigida, nicknamed “la Lollo,” was the most famous Italian movie star in the world in the 1950s and 60s. She received the special award of World Film Favorite at the 1961 Golden Globes, three years before Sophia Loren was given the same honor in 1964 and 1965. You may read my historical post at this link.

Gina Lollobrigida (c) HFPA 1984

Lollobrigida starred in classic Italian movies like the comedy Pane, amore e fantasia (1953) by Luigi Comencini opposite Vittorio De Sica, where she acquired another nickname, “la Bersagliera,” the dramas La provinciale (1953) directed by Mario Soldati from a 1937 short story by Alberto Moravia with Gabriele Ferzetti playing her husband, La Romana (1954) directed by Luigi Zampa from the 1947 novel by Moravia. She won a David of Donatello award as Best Actress for La donna più bella del mondo (1955), a fitting title for someone who was considered “the most beautiful woman in the world,” where she played Italian opera singer Lina Cavalieri opposite Vittorio Gassman. She was cast by John Huston as Humphrey Bogart’s wife in Beat the Devil (1953) shot in Rome. Her first American movie was Trapeze (1956) by Carol Reed costarring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. She starred in French-Italian movies like La Loi (1959) by Jules Dassin with Yves Montand and Marcello Mastroianni, and Venere Imperiale (1962) as Napoleon’s sister Paulina Bonaparte, which earned her another David of Donatello as Best Actress. She starred with Rock Hudson in the romantic comedy Come September (1961) directed by Robert Mulligan, Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968) with Peter Lawford and Telly Savalas, receiving a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress.

In the early 1970s Lollobrigida started as second career as a photo-journalist, photographing celebrities like Paul Newman, Salvador Dalí, Henry Kissinger, Audrey Hepburn, Ella Fitzgerald, and interviewing Fidel Castro in Cuba. A book of her work titled Italia Mia was published in 1973.

Returning to Los Angeles in 2018 at the age of 90 to receive a long overdue star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of the Chinese Theater, she was interviewed by the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press. Luca Celada wrote: “If you have worked with King Vidor and John Huston, shared the screen with Humphrey Bogart and Rock Hudson, Tyron Power and Yul Brynner, Anthony Quinn, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra, Yves Montand, Marcello Mastroianni and Erroll Flynn, it’s pretty safe to assume that you are part of cinema history.”

Lollobrigida said to HFPA: “It’s unbelievable. I was like drunk, because a love so long for one person doesn’t happen in life.” She added that ever since the 1950s, she has had a special love for America, “because I had a very good experience on the set, and when I came back, they treated me like the Queen of Sheba, and I was surprised because it was at the beginning of my career.” She was referring to her role opposite Yul Brynner in the Bible epic Solomon and Sheba (1959) by King Vidor, shot in Spain.

For more details, you may read my 2018 article in Cultural Daily

Rest in Peace, cara Lollo, addio (goodbye).

 

MARILYN MONROE
by Elisa Leonelli. November 10, 2022

The second and last time that Marilyn Monroe attended the Golden Globes was in 1962, at the Beverly Hilton hotel on Monday March 5, when she accepted a special award as World Film Favorite from presenter Rock Hudson. She wore a V-neck sequined black dress and her date was Mexican screenwriter Jose Bolanos.
She died five months later, on August 5, 1962, at age 36.

The movie Blonde (2022) directed by Andrew Dominik and starring Cuban actress Ana de Armas as Norma Jeane and Marilyn Monroe, was based on the 2000 novel by Joyce Carol Oates. It presented an impressionistic portrait of the iconic star starting with her childhood until her death, alternating between color and Black & White scenes.

The first time Marilyn Monroe attended the Golden Globes was in 1960, on Tuesday March 8 at the Cocoanut Grove, Ambassador Hotel, when she won as Best Actress for the comedy Some Like It Hot, directed by Billy Wilder costarring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. On that occasion, she wore a white fur stole over a white dress.

In 1957 Monroe had been nominated as Best Actress for the comedy Bus Stop by Joshua Logan, but she did not attend the Golden Globes, held Thursday February 28 at the Cocoanut Grove, Ambassador Hotel.

In 1954 she had been named World Film Favorite, but did not show up to receive the award at the Golden Globe and World Film Favorite Awards, held jointly at Club Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica on Friday January 22, by HFCA (Hollywood Foreign Correspondents Association) and FPAH (Foreign Press Association of Hollywood), the two organizations that would merge in 1955 to form the HFPA (Hollywood Foreign Press Association).

In 1952 Marilyn Monroe had received a silver Henrietta trophy as Best Young Box Office Personality at the World Film Favorite Festival held by HFCA’s splinter group FPAH at the Club Casa Del Mar, on Saturday January 26. Five other upcoming stars also received that award, Tony Curtis, accompanied by his wife Janet Leigh, Leslie Caron, John Derek, Mitzi Gaynor, Patrice Wymore. For that occasion, Monroe wore a strapless red dress.
At that same ceremony in 1952 Alan Ladd and Esther Williams won gold Henriettas as Most Popular Actor and Actress, as determined by a worldwide poll of 900 newspapers, magazines and radio stations.

The Henrietta trophy, a tall statue of a naked woman holding a flower, named after FPAH President Henry Gris, was presented to winners in every category, and was designed in 1952. At the first edition of FPAH’s World Film Favorite Festival, held in Palm Springs on Saturday January 27, 1951, a tall trophy of a globe on three pillars topped by an angel was used. Winners of Most Popular Actors and Actress were Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman. At the third and last edition of the World Film Favorite Festival, held February 14, 1953 at the Club Casa Del Mar Club, the golden Henrietta winners were John Wayne and Susan Hayward.

 

SIDNEY POITIER and HFPA
by Elisa Leonelli. November 8, 2022

The legendary Sidney Poitier passed away on January 7, 2022 at the age of 94 and his achievements were memorialized in an obituary published on the Golden Globes website. We trace back into our history to report how the journalists of the Hollywood Foreign Press recognized this trailblazing actor and activist early on by awarding him six Golden nominations, one win and two special awards.
In 1959 Poitier was nominated as Best Actor in a drama for The Defiant Ones, co-star Tony Curtis and director Stanley Kramer were also nominated. HFPA film critic Emanuel Levy called this film “a powerful look at racism and bi-racial friendship, teaming Poitier with Tony Curtis as escaped convicts handcuffed together.”
In 1960 Poitier was again nominated as Best Actor for Porgy and Bess directed by Otto Preminger; the movie won a Golden Globe as Best Picture musical, the amazing Dorothy Dandridge was nominated as Best Actress. In 1961 he was nominated as Best Actor a third time for A Raisin in the Sun, nominated as Best Actress was co-star Claudia McNeill who had played the matriarch in the play on Broadway. In 1966 he was nominated as Best Actor a fourth time for A Patch of Blue, which was nominated as Best Picture drama, so was Guy Green for Best Director and screenplay; co-star Elizabeth Hartman, who played the blind girl, was nominated as Best Actress and received a special award as Star of Tomorrow. In 1968 Poitier was nominated as Best Actor for In the Heat of the Night, Norman Jewison was nominated as Best director; the picture won as Best drama, co-star Rod Steiger as Best Actor, Stirling Siliphant for Best screenplay.
In 1964, on March 4 at the Coconut Grove, Poitier won a Golden Globe as Best Actor in a drama for Lilies in the Field, before receiving a landmark Academy Award as the first Black actor winner on April 13.
Having become famous all over the world, at the 1969 Golden Globes Poitier was named World Film Favorite. In 1982 the HFPA board of director selected him for the Cecil B. DeMille award. See Ready for My deMille by former HFPA President Philip Berk. Thirty years later in 2012 he would return the favor by agreeing to present the deMille to Morgan Freeman. Rod Steiger, accepting the award for Poitier, said: “Sidney did that under the pressure of racial ignorance, intolerance, and has contributed, with compassion and with love, things that will be remembered, which is the highest gift an artist can give to people of all races.”

While watching the new documentary Sidney, directed by Reginald Hudlin and produced by Oprah Winfrey, we spotted 1963 BW footage of the young Poitier getting seated at a table, shaking hands with Nora Laing (one of HFCA original founders and HFPA secretary 1957-1958), answering a question by Hilda Ulloa (HFPA secretary 1959-1961 and 1963-1964), seated next to Yani Begakis (future HFPA president 1970-1972). It was Begakis, a photographer, who as President in 1971 instituted the exclusive HFPA Press Conference format that would last 50 years. The interviewee was seated at a table, with a moderator calling for questions in an orderly manner, professional photographs being taken, and formal portraits of HFPA members at the end shot by HFPA official photographers. These photos were invaluable for foreign magazine editors to publish and to prove that their Hollywood correspondents had actually interviewed the talent.
The Hollywood Foreign Press has always been at the forefront of diversity and inclusion by recognizing Black talent from the beginning of the Golden Globe Awards in 1944 until today.