YOlUMf 14 - ~IRST QUARHR 2002 ca e QUARTERLY REP Oscar brings a golden glow ba(~ to Hollywood Starts on Page 12 FRO M THE PRESIDENT We're taking the Academy Report, this periodic newsletter for members, in a new direction with this issue. We're going to publish four quarterly issues that will concentrate on providing a historical record of the Academy's activities during each quarter, and which, taken together, will constitute a calendar year annual report. Each first-quarter report will include a complete review of the annual Academy Award activities; the second quarter's will highlight the Student Academy Awards; the third will feature board elections and the financial reports from the end of the fi scal year, June 30; LAST YEAR, THE ENTRANCE TO THE we'll hear about the Nicholl Fellowship presentations PLAYERS DIRECTORY'S NEW OFFICES AT and updates in board committees and Academy staff in 1313 VINE STREET LOOKED LIKE THIS. the fourth quarter and, of course, each issue will include reports on the myriad public and educational activities The Academy Players Directory, the that take place year-round at the Academy as well as any additional information of interest to the membership. casting bible of the industry since its We'll try to include each event and we'll try to continue to be photo-intensive, because that is what inception in 1937, moved its offices in you've seemed to enjoy in the past. But we won't be very January from the headquarters building timely. We're not a newspaper and we don't have the staff or other resources to turn this thing around quickly. But of the Academy in Beverly Hills to 1313 if you think of each Academy Quarterly Report as a historical record, you shouldn't mind too much. Vine Street in Hollywood. We hope you find the new Report as interesting as past issues have been. The Players Directory opened for - FRANK PIERSON business once more in Hollywood for the first time in 56 years. The Directory began ACA D EMY Q UA RTERLY REPORT in Hollywood 65 years ago, and remained in the community until 1946, when the Published by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Academy made its move west to the 8949 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California 90211-1972 (310) 247-3000. www.oscars.org Marquis Theater at Melrose Avenue and Doheny Drive. PRESIDENT ... .. ... .. ... .. .. Frank R. Pierson FIRST VICE PRESIDENT .... ... .. ......Roger L Mayer The PO occupies approximately 5,000 VICE PRESIDENT ...... ... ... ... Donald C. Rogers square feet of office space on the ground VICE PRESIDENT . .. • . ...... .. KaIhy Bates TREASURER .............. .. .. .. .. AIan Bergman floor of the 11B,OOO-square-foot building SECRETARY .................. .. .. Saul Zaentz that once was the home of the Don Lee­ IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT .. .. ... .. ..Robert Rebme EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ...... .. .. .. .. Bruce Dlwts Mutual Broadcasting television studios. Photos: unless otherwise identified, by Long Photography The remainder of the facility will house Design: Usa Carlsson, Edler Carlsson Ink the Academy Film Archive, which is Oscm-.Oscars· , Academy Awar~ , Academy Awaref', A.M.PAS.-, expected to move sometime in July, and and Oscar Nigtn- are the trademarks, and the Oscar statueIIe Is the registered design mark and copyrighted property of the also will provide additional archival storage Academy of Motion Picture Arts and ScI8llC8S. space for th e Margaret Herrick Library. 2 ACADEMY QUARTERLY REP O RT · VOL U M E 14 Renovation work began shortly after the Academy system created in March 1997, which combines the Players purchased the building in May of last year, and is expected to Directory pool of tens of thousands of actors with the player continue for quite some time. requirements listed by Breakdown Services. "Our ' new space on Vine Street will allow the Players "I think it's important for actors and casting directors to take Directory to even better serve the acting and casting community," note of this new growth of the Directory," Gonzales added. "In said Keith Gonzales, editor of the Directory. "It's more centrally the past several years, a number of different Internet-based located, and with on-site parking and ground-level offices, it will directories and casting systems came into being and captured be much easier for actors and their agents to come in to a certain amount of attention. Virtually none of them exist today, conduct any necessary business. Plus , the space allows us to and certainly none of them are expanding their services in the have several work stations for actors who don't have Internet ways we have. The Academy Players Directory has always been access at home to come in and update their listings." and will continue to be operated as a service to the industry, not In addition to the physical move, there recently have been a bottom-line-driven enterprise ." enhancements to the online version of the Players Directory Actors who list themselves in the Directory now have the ability to update virtuall y al l of their contact, credit, representation and union affiliation information on a daily basis. "Actors who list themselves in the Academy Players Directory are serious about their craft," said Gonzales. "What we have done is make sure that they can take full advantage of the immediacy of the Internet to keep their information as current as possible. And because of that, more and more casting professionals are turning to the PO Online ." As a result of the increasing tendency of both performers and casting people to use the Internet-based version , the printed version of the Directory is now published only twice each year instead of three times, Gonzales said . Actors pay a $75 annual fee to list themselves in the Players Directory. That fee includes them in the books, the ON MOVE-IN DAY EDITOR KEITH GONZALES WAS PLEASED Players Directory Online and The Link, the online casting WITH THE LOOK OF THE NEW RECEPTION AREA. Su Hyatt has been named associate editor of the research assistant and remained in that position until she Academy Players Directory. was promoted to coordinator in 2000. Hyatt also supervised Hyatt's duties will include advertising and marketing the Directory's move to Its new offices on Vine Street. of the Directory, player subscription development, event She replaces Arlene Grate, who retired at the end of planning and financial reporting. In addition to her new 2001 after nearly 20 years with the Players Directory. responsibilities, Hyatt will retain the office administration Grate began her career with the Directory in 1982 as a tasks from her previous position as coordinator. research assistant and was promoted to associate editor She began working with the Directory In 1994 as a in May 1987. ACADEMY QUARTERLY RE PORT · FI RST QUARTE R 2002 3 ACADEMY PRESIDENT FRANK PIERSON WELCOMES NEW MEMBERS TO THE ACADEMY. Forty-six new members of the Academy attended the Academy's New Members Reception in January. Academy President Frank Pierson and Executive Director Bruce Davis greeted the organization's newest members and welcomed them into the elite company of filmmakers . Members invited were those who had been selected in the spring and fall 2001 membership NEW ACTORS BRANCH review process. MEMBER MICHAEL MCKEAN AND HIS WIFE, ANNETTE The reception , suggested at the December board meeting by Publ ic Relations Branch O'TOOLE, CHAT WITH NEW Governor, and Past President, Richard Kahn , was hosted by 21 governors. Senior Academy MEMBER LOU DIAMOND PHILIPS. staff also were present to meet and greet the new members. The reception was held at the Center for Motion Picture Study in La Cienega Park , and Margaret Herrick Library Director Linda Mehr had pulled from the Library's collections materials re lating to the careers of many of the new members for display in the Library's Cecil B. DeMille Reading Room . It is expected to become an annual event. GRAPHIC ARTS LIBRARIAN ANNE COCO DEMONSTRATES THE COMPUTERIZED DATA BASES IN THE CECIL B. DEMILLE READING ROOM FOR RECEPTION ATTENDEES, INCLUDING NEW SOUND BRANCH MEMBER JON JOHNSON, TO HER LEFT, AND ASSOCIATE MEMBER DARRYL MARSHAK, TO HER RIGHT. 4 ACADEMY QUARTER Y REPORT . VOLUME 14 Otto Spofrri Rftirfs as AN PAS (ontrollfr The man The Wall Street Journal called "the ultimate arbiter of industry power" and the Associated Press called "the most powerful per­ son in Hollywood" has OTTO SPOERRI WAVES GOODBYE AT retired. HIS RETIREMENT After 23 years as LUNCHEON. Academy controller, Otto Spoerri has hung up his green eyeshade. Spoerri came aboard in 1978 at the account­ ing department's low water mark: he was hired by then-Executive Director James Roberts after the previous controller had been fired for embezzel­ ing Academy funds. His first several months were spent working with Price Waterhouse to put fmancial safeguards in place. But it was his role over the next two decades as the person who decided who sat where at the Academy Awards that picqued the press's interest. Over the years Spoerri has watched the Academy expand out of the headquarters build­ ing on Wilshire Boulevard into the Center for Motion Picture Study on La Cienega Boulevard, and then again just last year into the new home of the Academy Film Archive at 1313 Vine Street in Hollywood. He watched membership grow from 4,100 to nearly 6,400 today. And he saw the organization's armual rev­ enue grow from $4 million to $54.6 million, and its assets from $4.9 million to $129.5 million. A native of Zurich, Switzerland, Spoerri came to the United States in 1957. He started full-time at the Academy in 1978. Spoerri headed back to Switzerland following this year's Academy Awards, which he worked on as a consultant.