LOS ANGELES -- How much money is enough for one of the world's richest press associations?
For several years the little-known press group that owns and runs the Golden Globe Awards, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has claimed to have cleaned up its act. No longer do its members accept lavish gifts at this time of year from studios hoping to win nominations for their films and television shows, according to HFPA officials, who are to announce Golden Globe nominations in Beverly Hills today.
Dagmar Dunlevy, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
(File Photo/ Eric Charbonneau -- Beimages.net)
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The head of the HFPA is now a bona fide journalist, rather than an occasional freelancer. President Dagmar Dunlevy, who works for Canadian and German magazines, seeks to bring in other professional journalists to replace the older generation of ragtag sometime writers who make up much of the 92-member group.
If more proof were needed that the HFPA is trying to move up in the world, it came several weeks ago, when a lawyer for the group sent a letter to Dick Clark Productions, which produces the awards telecast on NBC. In the letter, the HFPA declared its intention to seek more money from the network for the rights to air the program.
This was a surprise, since NBC had renewed its deal with the press association only last year, agreeing to pay a reported $3 million per show for 10 years. The HFPA splits that sum with Dick Clark; the two organizations also share the cost of putting on the glitzy, star-packed event, which airs in January. The show, the organization's primary source of revenue, brings more than $1 million annually to the nonprofit group, according to several knowledgeable members.
The surprise move may have been influenced by the dramatic increase that the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences managed to extract from the four major networks last month for the rights to air the Emmys -- $52 million over the next eight years. (The previous Emmy price tag was $3 million a year.)
Dick Clark Productions, satisfied with the current Golden Globes deal, felt the HFPA was overreaching. Clark lawyer Bert Fields sent a sharp response, threatening to sue if the group broke its contract with NBC. Said one source close to the exchange: "They have a very rich deal. They have a contract. I can't imagine what they were thinking."
HFPA officials declined to comment on the matter. But what they were thinking, perhaps, is that 23 million Americans watched the Golden Globes last year and 20 million watched the Emmys. The Globes kick off the Hollywood awards season, and are regarded by many as an early indicator for the Oscars in March.
As the Globes have risen in prominence since NBC began to air them nationally in 1996, there have been calls to reform the tiny group that votes on them.
Dunlevy, who was re-elected for a second year as president, says she has been doing just that. "I have canceled so many things," she says. "I'm not going to tell you what, that's between me and the studios. But I'm very cognizant [of gift-giving], and probably overboard." Gifts are now limited to bottles of champagne, flowers and movie trinkets.
But more fundamental reforms have been hard to come by in the clubby, rivalry-ridden culture of the HFPA. The organization remains closed to outsiders: Any single member can blackball an applicant. It accepts a maximum of five new members a year, and rarely that many.
And the group's efforts to improve its professionalism are hampered by incidents like one that occurred this month. At a posh restaurant in Manhattan where the group's members had met "Gangs of New York" director Martin Scorsese and star Daniel Day-Lewis, long-time member Frances Schoenberger got into a heated argument with several others, which ended with her hitting fellow member Munawar Hosain and throwing water and then wine at fellow member Karen Martin, according to witnesses.
"It was a personal thing," said Schoenberger, who acknowledges tensions with other members. "I didn't behave like a lady. I behaved badly. But I'm a passionate person," she said, adding that she had been affected by the Scorsese movie, which "was very strong."
Besides, she added: "Where's the sense of humor?"
It should be noted, perhaps, that the incident came after many long weeks in which the group was cooped up together at screenings, dinners, cocktail parties and press conferences. Typical was a lavish affair that members attended this fall at the home of Chris McGurk, vice chairman of MGM.
Every studio-run screening for the HFPA also features cocktails or dinner or both, which is not the case for other media screenings. Each member is invited to every glitzy premiere, also not the case for other media.
And who are the members of the HFPA? Perhaps two dozen are working foreign journalists; a larger number are longtime members who freelance infrequently for small overseas publications. Many are Americans, many live on their pensions -- three are now in their nineties, many others in their eighties -- and struggle to produce the four yearly clippings they need to qualify as active members.
A large number of HFPA members make their living at other professions, including teaching, real estate, car sales and film promotion.
The money raked in by the Golden Globe telecast gives HFPA members privileges unheard of in other press organizations. Each active member can take two fully paid trips to film festivals of his or her choice, annually. They receive a subscription to Variety or The Hollywood Reporter for free. The association pays air fare for studio press junkets.
The HFPA gets unparalleled access to movie stars and directors, with studios holding press conferences for them with every movie release. Stars are required to pose for individual photos with every member who attends.
The HFPA also makes substantial donations to film-oriented charities.
Meanwhile, as before, journalists who work for prominent overseas publications are frequently rejected for membership, such as Claudine Mulard, a Le Monde correspondent whose application was rejected at least three times.
British journalists for large publications who are based in Los Angeles say they are uninterested in joining. Duncan Campbell, correspondent for The Guardian, said, "I think it's like one of Groucho Marx's clubs. If they were willing to have me in it, I wouldn't want to join. I've always considered that joining comes at a dreadful price -- your credibility."
