Let's Hear It For a More Solemn Salute To the Dead

To Motion Picture Academy President Sid Ganis and

show producer Laura Ziskin:

Yours is a garish event. That's why we love it. But there's one part of the show that needs to be dignified. Like, really dignified, not Hollywood dignified.

The "In Memoriam" segment -- a montage featuring 30 or so people from the movie industry who died in the past year -- has become a postmortem popularity contest. The Kodak Theatre audience adjusts the volume and vigor of its applause to suit the recognizability of the deceased. It's like a high school graduation ceremony but with dead folks.

Last year, the audience cheered for Pat Morita, Sandra Dee and Richard Pryor but slumped into polite tennis clapping for dancers Moira Shearer ("The Red Shoes") and Fayard Nicholas ("Stormy Weather"). It sounded like this year's State of the Union. ("Do we clap now?" "Keep clapping?" "Woo hoo, Shelley Winters!")

Anne Bancroft won the clap-o-meter last year (people actually whistled ). But poor Robert "Buzz" Knudson, the re-recording mixer on "Cabaret," "The Exorcist" and "E.T." -- a sound man, greeted in death by silence. It's the final act of Hollywood indecency.

Enough. The segment itself can be an elegant send-off for a cross-section of the industry. It's a necessary part of the show. The clap-o-meter needn't be. What is the harm in adding a little line after the teleprompter patter: "Please hold applause till the end"?

The rest of the ceremony is competitive. Let's not extend that competition to the hereafter.

Sincerely,

Dan