Friday, March 7, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
THIS way, Mr. DeVito," I said, gesturing up the red carpet.
"Hang on," he smiled. "Going to talk to these kids." With that, Danny DeVito hopped the rope separating him from his fans -- no mean feat, considering he's even shorter than he looks on film -- and signed autographs, the only celebrity out of roughly 30 attending the ShoWest Awards to do so.
That done, he charmed his way through the media gauntlet with a Sony HandyCam, filming anyone who interviewed him, filming "Actor of the Year" award winner Denzel Washington, filming anything that moved.
I followed two paces behind, hands clasped behind my back. DeVito was my boy. I'd volunteered my services to Tall Pony productions as a "talent escort" in hopes of getting some genuine celebrity dirt, and there I was, politely shadowing the director/star of "Hoffa" and "Matilda" like a stereotypical Geisha war bride, and he had no idea I was part of the press. It would have been fabulous if a Claire Danes/Winona Ryder catfight or something of that nature had broken out, but the only action occurred when "Jerry Maguire" star Cuba Gooding Jr. tripped and fell as he claimed his "Supporting Actor of the Year" award. Show me the floor!
My DeVito duties were simple. All I had to do was lead him around the backstage areas of the MGM Grand Garden, make sure he was in the holding room by 5:30 p.m. and avoid making any snide comments to Hugh Grant, skulking in the wake of "Best Supporting Actress" Elizabeth Hurley. I didn't expect that DeVito would exhaust his need of me within the first 10 minutes. He did.
"Where's the TelePrompTer guy?" he asked, as we slowly made our way through the Garden's endless hallways. I led him to the holding room, he murmured "thanks" and did not speak another word to me for the rest of the night. I continued to follow him for the next hour, hoping he would want me to run out for doughnuts or something, but it didn't happen.
I would have felt worse about being snubbed if I wasn't so tickled by the absurdity of it all. The ShoWest Awards were such a blatant hard-sell that the television audience (watching live on Ted Turner's vanity-plate network TNT) were likely hard-pressed to discern when the commercial breaks began. The product reels of several major studios were shown in their entirety -- loud, bombastic affairs that fired off one explosion after another, displayed actors brandishing guns and ended with the same triumphant orchestral flourish. Never has artistic bankruptcy been so literally portrayed.
If this bothered anyone, they didn't show it. Arnold Schwarzenegger chomped cigars and left almost immediately after he presented a "Best Director" trophy to "Batman Returns" director Joel Schumacher, who barely suppressed a laugh when host Sinbad mispronounced "film noir." Scott Glenn looked like an unmade bed with leather sheets, a look that allowed him to move around the MGM's casino unmolested.
As it turned out, the only life backstage came from DeVito and young "Mrs. Doubtfire" star Mara Wilson. He called her "honeypie" and stuck to her like glue for most of the night, even coaching her before she presented the "Young Star of the Year" award to Alex Linz, star of the third "Home Alone" film. They worked the press room like a seasoned pair of vaudevillians, and their aesthetic worked, too: he was scarcely a foot taller than she was.
"That was a really nice thing you did with Mara," somebody said, as we returned to the holding room.
"I've been there," DeVito shrugged, whipping out his cellular phone for the umpteenth time. "Hello, hello, hello, hello ... Who do you think it is?"
Before anyone knew it, the last presentation was being made and we witnessed the death of entertainment. Sinbad took the podium and announced, with all seriousness, that the "Favorite Movie of the Year" was "The Rock."
"Could the producers of 'The Rock' please come up to the stage?" he asked. It was a good 10 seconds before Jerry Bruckheimer and his associates stood up. Later, a fellow escort admitted that he almost leapt onto the stage when it looked like nobody would claim the dubious trophy, but decided not to because it would guarantee he would never escort again, and "I didn't want people to believe that I had anything to do with that movie."
"I would've backed you," I said. "'Thanks for the endorsement, male America. Prepare for a hundred more films just like this one.'"
DeVito left before the show was over. Had I known, I would have done the same. All I gained from the experience was a distaste for major-studio films and a healthy fear of the concessionaires, theater owners and junk-food monarchs who make up ShoWest. Albert Brooks summed things up nicely in his acceptance speech for "Mother," the "Screenplay of the Year":
"My films don't make tons of money," he admitted. "But my audience is very loyal, and they eat a lot of your crap."
Now that's the way to talk to the kids.
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