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Affected by the national tragedy, Hollywood deals with getting back to business
HOLLYWOOD, September 13, 2001–The mood in Hollywood was somber this week, as many Industry players pulled themselves away from the grim realities playing over and over on their TV screens and tried to get back to the business of show business.
Anyone reporting to a movie studio lot was instantly aware of the sea change in security measures, as most employees and visitors were required to submit to a search of their bags and briefcases. Water cooler talk in most production offices and sound stages centered on our national grief and outrage. People traded chilling stories of friends who were able, by a quirk of fate, to escape the horrible fate of the innocent civilians trapped inside the World Trade Center or aboard one of the hijacked airliners.
On the Paramount lot, actors like Scott Bakula, star of UPN’s new Star Trek series Enterprise, and his co-star Connor Trinnear were discussing the tragedy like everyone else in America during a break in filming. The actors looked tense and uneasy as they compared notes on the potential repercussions of the event. And in the Frasier production offices, a large floral bouquet sat on a table filled with gleaming Emmy statuettes, a tribute to the show’s executive producer David Angell.
Angell and his wife Lynn were killed along with 79 other people when the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. The couple was on their way to Los Angeles for the Emmy Awards, which were originally scheduled for this Sunday but have now been re-set for Oct. 7., according to officials at the Television Academy.
It remains uncertain whether the planned host, Ellen Degeneres, will remain on-board, perhaps as much a result of her ex-lover Anne Heche‘s recent embarrassing media assault as to the change in schedule. One thing is sure: the gala was originally supposed to be very comedy-heavy, but will now likely have a much more reverent tone.
Instead of composing acceptance speeches, East Coast-based Industry-ites–like nominees and presenters from Sex & the City, The Sopranos, Saturday Night Live and the press-junketing Everybody Loves Raymond cast–are now thanking their lucky stars that they weren’t on any of Tuesday’s three ill-fated flights to L.A.
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The fate of a full slate of pre- and post-Emmy events and promotions around Hollywood –including a round of free spa days for nominees at the lush Raffles L’Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills–was in limbo on Wednesday. High fashion centers like Rodeo Drive had been expecting a busy week of outfitting celebrity customers for the awards gala, but the V.I.P. business was put on indefinite hold after Tuesday’s tragedy. East Coast reps for top celebrity coutieriers and jewelers like Harry Winston had to cancel flight plans, according to insiders, and now with the new Emmy solemnity, stars’ entire wardrobes may have to be revamped to fit the mood.
Meanwhile, several of the film and television faithful had been enjoying the last of their end-of-summer getaways and found themselves unable to return to Los Angeles–like Tori Spelling, who, according to Daily Variety‘s Army Archerd, was stranded in Bermuda with her brother Randy.
R&B group Destiny’s Child, slated to perform at Tuesday night’s Latin Grammys show in L.A., was stranded in Utah after all U.S. flights were grounded in the wake of the attack. The group was the only scheduled act not already in town.
The Latin Grammys, which were to be hosted by Christina Aguilera and Jimmy Smits, were called off Tuesday, and by Wednesday L.A. was buzzing with word that the show would be canceled altogether rather than rescheduled. But a source within the Recording Academy told me members had been instructed to hold on to their tickets and wait rescheduling. The Latin Grammys were already smarting from an earlier black eye when the event switched locales from Miami to L.A. after threats from anti-Castro demonstrators put the musicians’ safety in question.
By Wednesday, security concerns were looming large in the minds of similar event producers, including December’s Kennedy Center Honors and March’s Academy Awards. “We have been having meetings regarding security and other issues prior to [Tuesday’s] events and we will continue to have meetings up to and including the day of the awards ceremony,” Academy spokesperson Leslie Unger told me. “That’s how seriously we take security.”
Events canceled in the wake of the NYC horror included the first annual Jewish Image Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where stars including Richard Schiff, Steven Weber, Jeffrey Tambor and Carl Reiner were to honor director Arthur Hiller.
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Telecommunications magnate Rupert Murdoch, who owns–among many other things– the Fox network, pulled out of a highly hyped appearance at the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge Convention in London, citing the terrorist attacks in the U.S.
Weekday TV shows like The Tonight Show and Late Night with Conan O’Brien stopped production for the week, presumably to make room for late-night network news coverage. America also just may not be in a laughing mood for the next several days.
Meanwhile, nervous network and cable executives scrambled to rearrange upcoming programming, preempting scheduled films with terrorist attacks or images of urban destruction, like The Peacemaker and Independence Day. New episodes of reality programs–including The Amazing Race, Lost, Big Brother 2 and Love Cruise also have been put on hold in favor of news coverage of a different, all-too-real reality.
Speaking of intruding realities, the isolated-fishbowl environment of CBS’s Big Brother 2 had to be pierced this week when producers felt compelled to inform the three remaining houseguests–Will, Nicole and Monica–about the WTC tragedy. When one of Monica’s cousins appeared to be among the many New Yorkers missing in the disaster, the producers relented and delivered the bad news on Tuesday.
“They’ve been told about the attack,” said a CBS publicist, “but they haven’t seen any pictures. I don’t know that they can fully comprehend the severity of the situation.” Indeed, as evidenced on the show’s live Internet feeds, the houseguests are only now starting to sense the enormity of what’s transpired. Monica is also being provided with regular updates regarding the fate of her family member, the publicist said.
For now, the Internet is the only place to see the show triumvirate of finalists–continuous news coverage has forced CBS to pre-empt this week’s installments, and while the network is planning to air the finale on Sept. 20, scheduling of the next round of episodes remains a daily juggling act. Meanwhile, show host Julie Chen has been stuck in New York during the nationwide grounding of air travel.
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Top programmers also wrung their hands over this fall’s roster of new series, which are unusually high in terrorist themes–see 24, The Agency, Alias, and UC: Undercover. More bad news for the networks, in the midst of an economic slump, news reports on the attack and its aftermath will undoubtedly divert attention from the new fall season, which was scheduled to begin next Monday but will be postponed a week.
One of TV’s biggest casualties may be, ironically, a project that was intended to serve as a dramatic wake-up call concerning the dangers of domestic terrorism. The aptly titled Terror is a five-hour NBC miniseries from producer Dick Wolfe uniting the various casts of the Law & Order series against biochemical attacks in NYC. Originally set for May sweeps, the project now may never even go before the cameras.
Cancellations also plagued a slate of soon-to-be-released films: the Barry Sonnenfeld-directed Big Trouble, with Tim Allen and Rene Russo, was bumped from its Sept. 21 release due to a sequence involving a nuclear bomb on a commercial jet. The Arnold Schwarzenegger starrer Collateral Damage, which depicts the destruction of a skyscraper, was yanked from its Oct. 5 release date.
Sony had headaches with films that aren’t even due out until next summer, including Sonnenfeld’s high-profile Men In Black 2, which missed its first day of filming. The studio also frantically scrambled to retrieve the trailers for the hotly anticipated Spider-Man, which prominently features the World Trade Center in a sequence that was never intended to be shown in the finished film.
But elsewhere the show went on. After canceling her sold-out Tuesday show, Madonna will return to L.A.’s Staples Center on Saturday to finish out her “Drowned World” tour. The Women of Sheba Medical Center, which supports Israel’s largest hospital complex, went forward with a luncheon tribute to Will & Grace‘s Debra Messing, among others, at the Four Seasons at Beverly Hills on Thursday.
Publicists for Shaquille O’Neal‘s “Shaqtacular IV,” a children’s charity benefit at Universal Studios with scheduled attendees including Whoopi Goldberg, Jessica Simpson, James Gandolfini, Wayne Brady, Melissa Joan Hart and various NBA, NFL and WUSA/MLS star athletes, said the event will still be held Saturday, but has been dramatically scaled down to be more private and secure.
