Oscar Returns to Hollywood Sunday

ByABC News
March 21, 2002, 5:53 PM

March 22 -- Oscar is coming home and he's bringing with him action, suspense and more than a little bit of controversy.

Insiders say it's a wide-open race. Will it be a beautiful evening for A Beautiful Mind? Will Lord of the Rings be the ringleader? Or will Oscar dance a cancan with the cast of Moulin Rouge?

The red carpet rolls out Sunday afternoon, with the festivities beginning at 8 p.m. ET and broadcast live on ABC-TV. Whoopi Goldberg returns for her fourth stint as host and the parade of presenters includes Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Jennifer Lopez, Mel Gibson and John Travolta.

Beautiful Mind, Ugly Controversy

Whenever a Hollywood controversy emerges, there's a good chance Russell Crowe will be involved. This time, it's not him, but his movie, as an alleged smear claim has been waged against A Beautiful Mind..

In the film, Crowe stars as a mathematician John Forbes Nash, who battles schizophrenia on the way to winning a Nobel Prize. In the weeks leading up the the festivities, the film seemed to be emerging as a front-runner in the Best Picture race.

But questionable stories about the real John Nash have been promulgated on the Internet purely to undermine the movie's credibility, some say.

"I don't recall any Oscar campaign in the past where quite so overt a campaign against a movie has been waged," said Richard Schickel, Time magazine's film critic.

Those rumors included allegations that Nash is anti-Semitic, had a homosexual liaison, and had a child with another woman subjects that were alluded to in the book but left out of the movie. Nash and his wife took to the air to dispute the allegations, but many feel the damage was done.

If A Beautiful Mind fades, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, with a leading 13 nominations, might be a major beneficiary. The other Best Picture nominees are the musical Moulin Rouge, the tragic family drama In the Bedroom, and British class-warfare tale Gosford Park.

In the race for Best Actor, Crowe might prove to be his own worst enemy. The hot-tempered actor from Down Under could be poised to join Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks as the only actors to win consecutive Best Actor Oscars. But his buzz took a beating when he publicly berated the producer of the British Film Academy Awards ceremony for cutting his acceptance speech from the broadcast.