The Show at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science that Didn't Happen

   In my nine years as film critic for the L.A. Weekly, I met most of Hollywood, and I considered it my duty to photograph and distort it all. I have in my possession thousands of ridiculous SX-70 Polaroid portraits of the famous, the insane, and the dead. They've never been published and rarely been seen by anyone except the subjects themselves - who usually express either glee or abject horror.
    I've had an incredibly hard time getting my work shown in public, so I was pleased when Doug Edwards, the curator of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, agreed to produce a show of my photos in their lobby. Their lobby leads to the Samuel Goldwyn Screening room, which is used almost every night for preview screenings and premieres of major films. It's a perfect location to be seen by all of Hollywood, and I wanted to be there.
    We picked 250 images for a mammoth show. Fifty would be blown up to poster size, the rest displayed in eight groupings of 25 original Polaroids. My opening date was Sept. 18, 1989. I met with their PR firm and they drew up a press release. The Polaroid Corporation agreed to sponsor the opening night party, and we expected the press to show up to photograph celebrities standing in front of their portraits. My career was made.
    Then the Academy voted in a new president, Karl Malden, who took one look at my pictures and said "Wait a minute. Do we have releases from all of these people?"
    Of course I didn't. Most of my subjects are public figures whose picture I was invited to take at press conferences. I figured I didn't need releases, and legally, I've been assured that nobody needs permission to display a public figure's image on their wall. Nevertheless, Malden decided that my pictures were weird and that some people might not like them. He declared that no pictures would be shown without signed releases from the subjects.
    That week, the Academy sent out bad black-and-white Xerox copies of my pictures to all of the subjects themselves, along with a letter asking for permission to display the picture in their lobby. I knew this was a bad idea, but I couldn't stop it.
    Some of my subjects know my work. I was sure that Emilio Estevez would say yes because one of my photos was once spied on his refrigerator. But I was concerned about people like Ted Turner or Hugh Hefner or Menachem Golan. To them, I would have been just another schmuck paparazzi who took their picture one day and disappeared into the crowd. What would they think when they opened their mail and saw ugly Xeroxes of their faces distorted into hideous mutants, along with a letter asking permission for the Academy to make an enormous blow-up of the monstrosity to display in a public place?
    66 people said yes, 22 said no, and 72 didn't respond. A lot of the answers surprised me. Hefner said yes! Golan & Turner both said no. Steve Martin and Whoopi Goldberg said yes, Robin Williams said no, even though he's handsome and not distorted at all in the picture. Don Siegel said yes, Clint Eastwood said no, and they were both in the same shot!
    But what did it matter who said no. My reaction was "Great, let's go. 66 pictures is plenty for a show." Doug Edwards agreed, but then the word came down from Malden. It was a question of whether the glass was half empty or half full. He was worried about the people who didn't respond. Also, some of the negatives were big negatives. Harry Dean Stanton not only said no, he threatened to sue the Academy if they displayed my picture of him. (On what possible grounds? Malicious surreal facial reconstruction of a celebrity in an artwork?)
    In any case, Doug and I got the runaround. The Academy was enthusiastic about the show, they looked forward to doing it, maybe the next spring, unless they got that new air conditioning system, which would mean the lobby might be torn up, so they might do the show in another location, or possibly later in the year.
    So we just waited for the Academy to vote in a new president, which they did two years later. Doug re-submitted the show to Robert Rehme, and he assured me it was a shoe-in, asking me to call the following week.
    The very next Monday, I opened my paper and was stunned to read Doug Edward's obituary. He had died of AIDS.