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Some years ago, I was sitting in the orchestra section of the Wiltern Theatre, pretending to ignore the barrel of the video camera aimed straight at my head.<\/p>\n
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The occasion?<\/p>\n
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The Cable Ace Awards.<\/p>\n
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The reason for my presence?<\/p>\n
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An HBO film called The Last Innocent Man.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It had received multiple nominations from the Cable Academy back in the days when cable programming was not yet eligible for Emmy consideration: Best Movie or Mini-Series, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Art Design, and best of all\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2026Best Writer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Me!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So there I was\u2026in heady company: Sammy Davis, Jr., Raymond Burr, Ted Turner, Billy Crystal, Hal Holbrooke, Larry King, Bernadette Peters,\u00a0Rod Steiger, and many, many others.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was there, and I was ready.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Speech rehearsed and memorized.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Looking relaxed but ready to spring up and bound to the stage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The writing nominees are announced.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A pause for the opening of the envelope.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The camera moves in close on me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And the winner is\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ted Whitehead for The Life and Loves of a She-Devil<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ted Whitehead?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For The Life and Loves of a She-Devil<\/em>?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019d obviously been robbed!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I erupted in silent indignation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Did I consider the possibility that I hadn\u2019t deserved the award?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Are you kidding me?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No, I was clearly the victim of shocking bias on the part of the Cable Academy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They obviously had something against the small but significant minority I represent: former DePauw University Professors of English born in Pomona, California.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How did I know?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not a single one of us had ever won an ACE Award!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I suffered similar disappointment some eight or ten years later when my NBC film, A Friend To Die For<\/em>, was overlooked in the Emmy nominations.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It had received fabulous reviews.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It had attracted the largest television audience of any MOW aired that year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And it had gone totally unrecognized by the members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Oh, it had starred Tori Spelling, and the producer had refused to spend a dime promoting it during the awards season.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But what difference could that have made?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Once again, I\u2019d been robbed!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not only had my film been overlooked, but my heartbreaking work of staggering genius as \u201cThe Jogger\u201d had also been ignored.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019d opened and closed my movie in a silent turn so dazzling that every actor who undertakes such a role in the future will, I am sure, have to measure his performance against mine.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Never has an extra contributed so much to a motion picture and received so little in the way of recognition!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Television Academy was obviously as biased as the Cable Academy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you looked at the record, there was only one conclusion possible: former DePauw University Professors of English from Pomona, California simply didn\u2019t stand a chance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Twice the victim of Hollywood\u2019s institutionalized bias against me and my kind, I understand Al Sharpton\u2019s fury at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science\u2019s failure to nominate the star and the director of Selma<\/em> in this year\u2019s competition.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The only possible explanation for such oversights is, of course, unrepentant racism.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Never mind that the President of the Academy is Cheryl Boone Isaacs, a charming, talented black woman I had the pleasure to know back in my day at Paramount.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Never mind that last year, 12 Years a Slave<\/em> received nine nominations from the racially biased Academy members and won Best Picture, Best Writing, and Best Supporting Actress.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Never mind that Paramount, the American distributor of Selma<\/em>, failed to get the screener DVD\u2019s out to the Screen Actors Guild and the Producers Guild in time to qualify for their awards.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Never mind that the film\u2019s portrait of Lyndon Johnson has been challenged by distinguished historians and by actual participants in the events leading up to Selma and to the passage of the Civil Rights Act.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Never mind that Jake Gyllenhaal, who gave the performance of a lifetime in Nightcrawler,<\/em> and that Amy Adams, whose portrayal of Margaret Keane in Big Eyes<\/em> won the Golden Globe for Best Actress, were overlooked as well.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As for those who have made the preposterous suggestion that perhaps the members of the Academy simply didn\u2019t feel director Ava DuVernay and actor David Oyelowo deserved nomination\u2026well, that\u2019s simply beneath contempt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then, of course, there are those who ask how the membership of the Academy could be racist in light of the fact that they did nominate Selma<\/em> in the Best Picture category even though they overlooked the director and star.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Duh-huh!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Clearly nothing more than the Academy\u2019s shameless attempt to cover-up its appalling bigotry.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No, Al Sharpton is right to call an emergency meeting of his Task Force on Diversity to consider action against the racist Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As the victim of obvious bias from both the Cable Academy and the Television Academy, I say to him, I share your pain.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n