BRAD RENFRO - OSCAR'S ERRORS OF OMISSION?

OSCAR'S ERRORS OF OMISSION?

Some analysts were suggesting that in the haste to mount Sunday night's Oscar telecast following the writers' strike, the show's writers failed to research their material sufficiently. That might have accounted for the omission of some names from the annual list of the "departed." Several writers immediately noticed the fact that Roy Scheider, who died on Feb. 10, was overlooked, as was Brad Renfro who died on January 15. A spokeswoman for the Academy said that Scheider's death came too recently to be included and of Renfro, she said, "Unfortunately we cannot include everyone." But a message on Nikki Finke's Dateline Hollywood Today blog observed that others not included in the list were such notables as Robert Goulet, Merv Griffin, Marcel Marceau, Tom Poston, and Charles Nelson Reilly, among many others. Also setting off a major controversy was the omission of Whoopi Goldberg and Steve Martin from a montage featuring Oscar hosts. Appearing on The View, where she is a regular panelist, Goldberg, a four-time Oscar emcee, appeared emotional over the slight. Her fellow panelists observed that she was the first woman ever to host the Oscars, the first Oscar winner to host the affair, and that her entrance in white face as Queen Elizabeth ("The African Queen") was one of the most memorable Oscar incidents. "Did you make somebody at the Oscars mad?" she was asked. "Undoubtedly," she replied."

26/02/2008