|
|
Hollywood Spin
|
|
Golden Shutterbug
Despite breaking her pelvis at the Golden Globes earlier this year, 86-year-old photographer Anita Weber has recently returned to the exclusive ranks of active Hollywood Foreign Press Association members.
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
By Richard Horgan
|
At first glance, 86-year-old Portland, Oregon native Anita Weber may not seem like one of Hollywood’s more influential journalists.
But as a thirty-year member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, an oft-maligned organization that currently boasts 93 active members, her vote carries tremendous weight each January when the HFPA hands out Golden Globe statuettes. What’s more, unlike many of her colleagues, Weber has no problem discussing the inner workings of an organization founded in 1943 by a correspondent for the British Daily Mail newspaper.
“I’m probably the fourth oldest member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,” says Weber during a recent interview at her spacious high-rise apartment near Farmer’s Market in Los Angeles. “Sylvia Norris (United Kingdom), who just died, was 90. Then there’s Sven Rye (Denmark), who was once the Danish vice consul in Los Angeles. He’s in a rest home facility now but is a dear, sweet, adorable man. Finally, Gloria Geale (United Kingdom) is a few months older than I.”
In March, Weber was awarded the International Media Award at the International Cinematographers Guild 40th annual publicists awards ceremony in Beverly Hills for her work with photo syndicates in the United Kingdom (Capital Pictures), South Africa (Elite Photo Agency) and Japan (Uniphoto Press).
Meanwhile, after seven months of arduous recovery from a pelvis fracture sustained during a seemingly innocent walk towards the buffet table at a Universal Pictures-Focus Features Golden Globes after party, Weber picked up her trusty Canon EOS Rebel camera in August and is once again driving herself to various assignments.
“I’m very proud of my award and I like to think it’s not just a sympathy award because I had broken my pelvis,” says Weber. “I come from Swiss stock and have never really been an invalid. I broke my hip twelve years ago in London and I recovered from that very quickly.”
Following stints as a model, stand-in, actress and overseas U.S. army service club director, Weber began working as a personal assistant in 1955 for a flamboyant Los Angeles millionaire who had spent much of his inheritance on a stable of race cars housed near Riverside.
By sheer happenstance, she also began writing a Hollywood gossip column on the side for The Mercury, a daily newspaper serving the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, using in some cases information fed to her by actress and good friend Gloria Grahame (It’s A Wonderful Life, The Bad And The Beautiful, Oklahoma!). When her millionaire boss died in 1973, Weber joined the HFPA and used money bequeathed by him and her father some years later to support her full-time journalistic pursuits.
“Scott Downey, a photographer from whom I used to buy pictures, stuck a sure shot camera in my hand one day and said ‘try this, the money is in the pictures’,” Weber recalls. “Then he suggested writing little paragraphs to go along with the photos. I like to describe what the star is doing, their latest movie and whether it was good or bad. If it’s good, I will say so, if it’s bad, I just forget about it, because I’m not going to bite the hand that feeds me.”
Weber and her colleagues recently voted in as their newest member writer Margaret Gardiner, a South African who was crowned Miss Universe back in 1978. While such factoids are largely responsible for jokes made at the HFPA’s expense by stand-up comedians and even some of the Golden Globe award recipients themselves, the group is going to great lengths to try and ensure the integrity of its membership rolls.
| The HFPA now foots the bill for certain press junkets, especially the occasional extended event it coordinates overseas, and makes a point of demoting to their inactive membership list any journalist who does not meet the organization’s annual review requirements.
| |
“In order to keep your membership up to date, you have to attend a certain number of meetings, submit a certain number of clippings and be cleared by Yulia Dashevsky of the Motion Picture Association of America,” explains Weber. “You don’t just get to stay if you’re not productive.”
“Everyone comes in as a writer but many eventually become photographers as well, because there’s more money in photos,” Weber continues. “Some of the newer applicants want in so badly they have it in for us when they are rejected. Sometimes they apply three or four times. We can’t just take anyone.”
Weber cites Burt Reynolds as her all-time personal favorite interview subject but also has a soft spot for Sharon Stone and Johnny Depp, who when he told her that he was reluctant to marry his French girlfriend because it would mean altering the perfection of her given French name, Vanessa Paradis, Weber replied that with two children in tow, this was no way for him to think.
| Other than Barbra Streisand, Weber cannot recall a celebrity who set limitations on the way in which they were to be shot and lit at an HFPA publicity event. At the other end of the spectrum, Weber points out that PMK/HBH publicity head Pat Kingsley is one of the most consistent PR representatives when it comes to showing their clients in the best possible light.
|
“Pat is one of the few publicists who consistently gives you that extra five minutes to shoot a celebrity in a different setting, say outside of the hotel where the junket is being held,” says Weber. “This helps us get a much better backdrop for the photos.”
While Weber has not had any direct professional contact with the paparazzi side of the business, she did help her original mentor, Scott Downey, head in that direction by vouching for him when speaking to various PR representatives. Downey now successfully operates his own company.
Next year, because of a decision by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to move the Oscars from March to late February, Academy members will complete their nomination process for the first time prior to the Golden Globes being handed out on January 25th. Traditionally, Oscar voters have been able to watch the HFPA annual ceremony before the close of their own internal voting deadline.
| Unlike the Academy, HFPA members get to vote on every single category and must register selections for both film and TV programs, a laborious balloting process that Weber says usually takes her a week to complete. AMPAS has over 6,000 members compared to the HFPA’s 93.
| |
“In a subtle way, publicists will always try to influence our votes,” says Weber. “We know the publicists who are guilty of this because they get so frenzied and anxious to help. Friends are friends, but we are not supposed to talk amongst ourselves about who we’re voting for.”
“It used to be for five years running that the top four acting awards, plus Best Picture and Best Director, coincided mostly between the Golden Globes and the Oscars,” Weber continues. “But now it’s one here and one there, you can’t predict it anymore.”
| Weber does not own a computer and has stayed away from digital photography techniques espoused by younger HFPA colleagues such as Yani Begakis, who helped solidify the organization’s junket process. The formerly married Weber, who once turned down a date with Maurice Chevalier at the Palm Beach Casino in Cannes and had a secret romance at age 19 with a much older Hollywood director, spoke to Hollywood Spin in between separate weekday evening dates with her current male companion.
|
By next year’s Golden Globes, at age 87, she hopes to have settled her claims against Merv Griffin’s Beverly Hilton Hotel for reimbursement of medical expenses related to her January mishap. Like the HFPA, Weber is a survivor and someone who knows how to have fun with life. The last thing that can slow her down is the occasional piece of bad press directed at her namesake organization.
[Every Wednesday, Hollywood Spin takes a look at Hollywood PR and media matters. To reach the author, please email rhorgan@filmstew.com. Meanwhile, to comment on this week’s topic, please go to our Hollywood Spin Discussion Board.]
|
|
|
|
|
 Email
|
 Print
|
|
|
|
|
|