During the weeks before the Academy Awards, Army Archerd raged a ruthless campaign against Elia Kazan in his column in Daily Variety. Archerd implored the Hollywood glitterati to stand up to the supposed evil of Kazan by sitting down and folding their arms when Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese presented the eminent director with an Oscar for lifetime achievement. Happily, it turned out that the crowd was less than sympathetic to the cause of Stalinist secrecy (Kazan had dutifully and patriotically "named names" to House investigators when they questioned him under oath about Communists in the movie business). More than half the crowd rose to applaud Kazan.
As a public service to those who tuned out the tedious Oscars before Kazan's moment, THE SCRAPBOOK took careful notes -- a list! -- of every attendee it could identify who sat. And now we will name names: Ed Harris (nominated for Best Supporting Actor for The Truman Show), Amy Madigan (from Field of Dreams, and Harris's wife), Nick Nolte (nominated for Best Actor for Affliction), Vicki Lewis (from NewsRadio, and Nolte's girlfriend), Paula Coburn (wife of James Coburn, winner of Best Supporting Actor for Affliction), and Sophia Loren. THE SCRAPBOOK is prepared to believe that Loren was just being demure.