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LOS ANGELES - Woody Allen, a New Yorker famous for shunning the Hollywood establishment, made a surprise appearance at the Academy Awards this afternoon to pay tribute to his native city and its resilient spirit.
Allen, a jazz musician who usually spends Oscar night playing the saxophone at Elaine's in
New York and who has never appeared at the show received a standing ovation and said, "Thank you very much ... that makes up for the strip search."
The winner of two Oscars and nominee for some 20 awards joked that he panicked when he received a call from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences about four weeks ago.
"I thought that they wanted their Oscars back," he said.
He also joked he thought the Academy might be calling to apologise for not nominating his film "Curse of the Jade Scorpion" for any awards. The film, released last summer, was an old-style whodunit mystery that was a critical success but a commercial flop.
But then Allen moved to the matter at hand, introducing a retrospective of films made in New York City, celebrating Hollywood's love of the nation's largest city more than half a year after the hijacking attack on the World Trade Centre.
"I plead with you to please come make the films there," said Allen, a famous booster of the city who has based nearly all his films there.
The retrospective of Gotham clips was put together by director and writer Nora Ephron, and included highlights from such classics as "42nd Street," "Saturday Night Fever," "Sweet Smell of Success," "Tootsie," "West Side Story," and "Taxi Driver."
Allen, who won a best director Oscar in 1978 for "Annie Hall" and an award for best original screenplay in 1987 for "Hannah and Her Sisters," said he is currently making a film in New York, a romance about a foot fetishist who falls in love with a Harvard professor.
Oscar nominees and winners (full list)
nzherald.co.nz/oscars
