Dan Glickman: Best Original Song

Is Motion Picture Association of America President Dan Glickman striking up the bland? No. At home with Rhoda, he's donning his showman persona. (By Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post)

"Rhoda!" Dan Glickman belted it out. "I'm home!" He slammed the door.

Rhoda gave him the kind of look that only a first wife could conjure. It hooked into his slumping shoulders and reeled back 39 years. There were secrets in her smile, things she knew.

It had been a demanding day for the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, busy in the run-up to the Academy Awards, where he'll stroll down the red carpet with the stars. For much of his career, Dan, 60, has been an earnest, balding politician, a self-effacing Kansas congressman and then a Clinton agriculture secretary. He has an accountant's wise brown eyes. He buys dark, dotted ties because he knows he slops his soup. His idea of entertainment is watching the Weather Channel for hours.

Now Dan has to perform the role defined for 38 years by the flash of Jack Valenti. Being MPAA president is the most glamorous lobbying job in Washington, championing studio lawsuits and fighting piracy. Yet newspaper stories about Dan have described him as "inelegant" and "as flat as Kansas."

Rhoda knows better. She smiled as she watched him take off his blazer, a close-lipped smile that takes time to ripen, the thin, smiling line between mockery and awe. They walked into the living room of their Dutch Colonial in Northwest Washington, and he sat in his favorite seat.

Yes, Dan was wearing black socks with brown shoes. Yes, he hangs around Whole Foods and compares vitamin labels. True, he studies the Official Airline Guide -- "He saw an airplane in the sky and knew where it was heading," said Rhoda. "Well, Northwest only flew in the morning to Detroit," Dan said. "I read the flight routes."

But there was another side to Dan, beyond evaluating Omega-3 fish oil.

He sat down, as he often does at night, at the old, chipped, upright piano, and briefly closed his eyes. He crushed the pedal under his shoe. He tinkled the keys wildly with one finger. He arched his eyebrows and puffed out his chest, and opened his mouth.

"What kind of fool am I?" Dan sang loudly. Then he stopped: "Wait -- that's too low."

"Danny, it doesn't matter," said Rhoda.

"What kind of fool am I, who never fell in love?" He interrupted himself again: "That's too high."

"You're never going to hit it," Rhoda said.