A Primer On Primary Colors'

• The comedy team of Mike Nichols
and Elaine May dates back to Chica-
go's Second City and its antecedent,
The Compass, at the University of
Chicago in the 1950s. On stage,
screen and in a series of classic
recordings, Nichols and May were
known for their acerbic social obser-
vations through the medium of com-
edy.
In the 1960s, they brought An
Evening with Mike Nichols and
Elaine May to Broadway,
where it ran for a year. The
show was still selling out when
the team decided to end its
run and pursue separate
careers.
Two years ago, Nichols and
May reunited for their first
official screen collaboration,
the hit comedy The Birdcage.
As for Primary Colors,
Nichols recently told the New

York Times:
"It's not about Clinton, but the
`Clinton thing. Its about our
process, and where we've brought it
and it's brought us. Its about the
gantlet that candidates have to run.
It's about scandal, and the power of
scandal in this media-run world. It's
about sexuality, and its uncontrolla-
bility, and what happens when you .
try to control it. It's about the mys-

• Joe Klein's anonymously published
novel Primary Colors came out two
years ago, and the game began. Who
was Anonymous? Then a reporter for
Newsweek, Klein is now writing the
New Yorker's "Letter from Washing-
i
ton." An early booster of Clinton in
the national press, Klein looks
at the underside of politics but
never seems to abandon his ulti-
mate faith in his novel's scandal-
ridden protagonist.
"Nobody is unimpeachably
right in Primary Colors," Klein

Mike Nichols directed "Primary
Colors" from Elaine May's screen-
play based on the novel by
Anonymous (Joe Klein).

natured acceptance.
"They don't know
where the statue
came from.
Owen Siegel, a
member of the
Niles Township
Jewish Congrega-
tion in Skokie, went
to the Oscar cere-
mony "once and
stayed behind the
scenes to make sure

OSCAR NOTES

Owen R. Siegel, founder and CEO of
R.S. Owens & Co. of Chicago, the
60-year-old trophy making company
that's been making the Oscars since
1983, keeys the statuettes "under lock
and key" until they can be shipped to
California.
But first, each figure — about 60 a
year — is unceremoniously screwed
onto a brass base and individually
numbered. The Academy has present-
ed 2,443 Oscars in its history and the
numbering system helps officials keep
track of each statue.
The Gilded One is next bagged,
boxed, thrust on a conveyor belt and
loaded into a Pinkerton armored car.
He and his brethren then take wing
on a special Los Angeles-bound
"Flight of the Oscars."
After the ceremony, the Oscars are
whisked back to Chicago to be
engraved with the winners' names.
That's the last time employees get to
see that year's crop of Oscars, unless
one or two are returned for replating
(the statuettes are guaranteed for life).
Many stars hate the engraving deal,
seeing as they're immediately parted
from their treasures. Curiously,
though, not a one has flown to the
Windy City to personally retrieve his
or her Oscar.
Scott Siegel, president of the compa-

tery of marriage and how no one ever
knows what's going on inside a mar-
riage.

"

Top: Scott Siegel, president of R.S.
Owens & Co. in Chicago, is inter-
viewed by the media.

Right: Gloria Stuart, up for Best
Supporting Actress as "Old Rose" in
"Titanic," was, she said, taught
irreverence by Groucho Marx.

ny and Owen's son, attributes this phe-
nomenon to innocence rather than Bev-
erly Hills snobbery (or a dread of Chica-
go winters). Who would guess Oscar's
humble origins in a working-class neigh-
borhood? It's the stuff of another reel-
life B-movie.
But that's show biz.
"People don't even know we exist,"
Scott Siegel said, shrugging in good-

everything was going OK."
Scott Siegel, a member of Evanston's
Temple Beth Emet, will be a member of
the audience at Monday nights Oscar
ceremony. But Owen Siegel will again
stay behind in Chicago. "I'm more
interested in making a buck than seeing
celebrities," he said.
— Norma Meyer

told the New York Times. "There are
no villains in it To a very great
extent what the book became for me
was a way to exorcise my frustrations
with the journalistic form of having
to find heroes and villains. You've got
to make the choice about whether
you want the guy who absolutely,
legitimately cares for the people and
feels he can get away with murder, or
do you want someone mediocre?"

• Caroline Aaron co-stars in Primary
Colors as Lucille Kaufman, Susan
Stanton's (Emma Thompson) old
friend and law school classmate who
assumes herself part of the inner cir-
cle. Aaron was most recently seen as
Woody Allen's sister, for the third
time, in Deconstructing Harry.

— Gail Zimmerman

Gloria Stuart got a phone call from
her daughter, Sylvia, who broke the
incredibly good news that Stuart had
been nominated for an Academy
Award for Best Supporting Actress
for her role as "Old Rose" in the
mega-box office hit Titanic.
If Stuart, 87, wins, she will make
history as the oldest performer to
earn an Academy Award.
Groucho Marx, the current holder
of that title, was 83 when he received
an honorary Oscar. Incidentally, Stu-
art's late husband, Arthur Sheekman,
worked as a screenwriter on such
Marx Brothers films as Duck Soup,
Horse Feathers and Monkey Business.
The whole gang often played poker
together on Saturday nights.
Stuart became a founding member
of the Screen Actors Guild in 1933
as a matter of self-preservation.
"I got involved because the hours
were murderous," Stuart explains.
She was involved in other causes in
the 1930s as well. On a recent-
"Tonight Show," host Jay Leno
brought up Stuart's anti-Nazi activi-
ties.
Stuart will be accompanied to the
Oscar ceremony by her daughter and
son-in-law. "All my beaus are dead,"
she said. ❑

— Eirik Knutzen

3/20
1998

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