The nominee: Chevy Chase
Hosted: once (1988, twice if you count his 1987 joint effort
with co-hosts Goldie Hawn and Paul Hogan)
The monologue: If you grew up in the '70s, there's a good
chance you had a crush on Chevy Chase, a fine figure of a man and funny. So,
when he
showed up to host the Oscars in the mid-'80s it seemed like a good
thing. But he came with the same smug attitude he used while reading the news on
"Saturday Night Live." That sort of bored, I'm-too-good-for-you expression. Then
he picked his nose on camera, and a generation of young women recoiled and
thought, "What is he, my little brother?"
He nagged Paul Newman to play a game of eight-ball with him (this was
the year after Newman won Best Actor for "The Color of Money"). It was all
scripted and silly, and intended to lead to the visual punch line of Chase
dropping his pants. Which wasn't funny. What was funny was the dance of Newman's
eyebrows that followed; you could see that Newman thought the shtick was
tedious, but he was generous enough, and so good humored that he could smile
through it. It's just one night, he seemed to be saying, I'll go with the joke.
Because show business is, in the end, a job, and the true professionals never
forget that.
The envelope, please: It's over between us.
(AP)
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