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Oscar producer urges short speeches
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THE 20th annual Oscar nominees lunch unspooled on Monday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel with yet another call from Oscar show producers to keep acceptance speeches to a minimum.
After showing clips of past acceptance speeches to emulate -- including terse ``thank yous'' from Alfred Hitchcock and William Holden -- Oscar telecast producer Gil Cates laid down the ground rules for the upcoming edition.
Cates, who is producing the show on ABC for the 10th time, unveiled the Academy's latest ploy in its attempt to hold the event to a three-hour running time.
The Academy is calling upon all nominees to write up a laundry list of people to thank. Winners' lists will be immediately posted on the Oscar Web site, Oscar.com.
``I've tried everything: charm, humour, persuasion, bribery,'' he quipped.
Turning to old black-and-white clips of previous ceremonies, Cates said that previous winners knew how to be succinct.
``I mean, these people had families, husbands, wives, children. They had colleagues, collaborators, co-workers, agents, publicists, lawyers ... and yet they didn't need to mention all of these people by name in order to express their gratitude,'' he said.
In recent years, Oscarcasts have suffered from considerable overruns -- and a downturn in the ratings. Last year's telecast exceeded four hours.
(SD-Agencies)
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