Two Floors Below Winslet
When you live in an Oscar winner's building, you need to do something nice to congratulate them.
Mark J. Terrill / AP Photo
Plus: Check out our Oscars page for more news on the awards, the nominees and the glam.
Producer Larry Mark and director Bill Condon may not have been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar for Dreamgirls but they didn’t hold that against the Academy, for they did a remarkable job of reviving the show. There was, however, one glaring exception: that awful Hollywood musical number with Hugh Jackman (otherwise a first-rate host) and Dreamgirls star, Beyonce.
It was a mess. Badly staged. Badly directed. Where was Debbie Allen when you needed her?
And where, in fact, was Eartha Kitt during the dead-people montage?
I liked the faux intimacy of the David Rockwell set but not the faux youth of Sophia Loren and Goldie Hawn. Loren looked like Miss Kitty in a film version of Gunsmoke shot by Sergio Leone. When Hawn came into view when presenting the Best Supporting Actress award, a voice from the crowd where I was partying shouted, “I see my Halloween costume.” But then all the guests quieted to listen to Penelope Cruz, my favorite winner of the night.
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We all applauded loudly for Kate Winslet. She and her family live two floors up in the Chelsea building where the party was going on. It’s nice when a neighbor wins an Oscar. My godson and I wrote a note of congratulations and slipped it under her door.
My favorite speeches were delivered by Lance Black and Sean Penn. I’m gay. I cried.
Click here for the rest of our Oscar wraps.
Kevin Sessums is the author of the New York Times bestseller Mississippi Sissy, a memoir of his childhood. He was executive editor of Andy Warhol's Interview magazine and a contributing editor of Vanity Fair and Allure. He is a contributing editor of Parade. His new memoir, I Left It on Mountiain will be published by St. Martins Press next year.
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