THIS year’s 96th edition of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards (more popularly known as ‘the Oscars’) will be held on Sunday, March 10, 2024, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, USA.

Not many of us are aware that within the film industry, there are a number of prominent movie actors, actresses and other specialist craft filmmakers who have been in Sarawak on location shooting working on at least three major Hollywood movies since 1987, who are past Oscars alumni.

I have taken a head count and would like to highlight their Oscar-hood and in which films they were honoured, in what capacity, and the year it was awarded.

In total, according to the industry bible www.imdb.com (the Internet Movie DataBase, of which I have been a member since its incorporation in January 1996 – it is now part of the Amazon.com Group) there have been six Oscar honourees and five Oscar nominees in their various respective categories, which had ranged from acting to art direction to editing and cinematography.

I would start with 1987’s Orion Pictures’ ‘Farewell to the King’, which was released in 1989, from which came four Oscars alumni and two nominees.

Starting with the most decorated, a two-time Oscar winner and four-time nominee Anne V Coates, a British-born film editor, who had passed on in 2018.

Coates had won her first Oscar for editing ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ in 1962, at the age of 37. She was again awarded with an ‘Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement’ at age 91, just a year before her death.

Her other nominations for Oscars were for ‘Becket’ (1964), ‘The Elephant Man’ (1980), ‘In the Line of Fire’ (1993), and ‘Out of Sight’ (1998).

Coates was 62 when she first arrived in Kuching in 1987 to start her editing work on ‘Farewell to the King’. She was a lovely, soft-spoken, extremely intelligent and caring person with a perpetual smile on her face.

During her four months working on the film in Kuching, I had neither seen nor heard her speak above her usual British-accented tone or volume. She was a workaholic and would spend all the time in the editing room with her two assistants, splicing and cutting away to ensure that the film rushes could always be shown on time in an orderly manner.

It was a real pity for me personally that so much wonderful and brilliant footage that was actually shot for the film had never seen the light of day and was just left on the cutting room floor at a special room in the Holiday Inn (now Grand Margherita Hotel).

An insider had, many years later, told me that it was Steven Spielberg (director John Milius’ very close buddy) who should be blamed for not letting him get his way with a three-hour cut; instead, it had ended up with the one-hour-57-minute print that was released.

Gil Parrondo was also a two-time Oscar winner with one other nomination for art direction.

In 1970, he won the Oscar for ‘Patton’, which gave George C Scott a ‘Best Actor’ Oscar as well.

In 1971, he won again for ‘Nicholas and Alexandra’. His other nomination was for ‘Travels with My Aunt’ in 1972.

Parrondo was born in Luarca, Asturias, Spain in 1921. He was 66 when he came to take charge of the production design for ‘Farewell to the King’; he died in Madrid, Spain on Dec 24, 2016, at age 95.

Parrondo and I had become very good friends during his time in Kuching. We had common interests and of similar temperament, and would hang out after hours.

He loved his wines and his double (and triple) expressos, which he would dunk five to six teaspoonfuls of sugar into each time (yes, he had a very sweet tooth).

He had enjoyed fine dining and just loved socialising with the locals.

Food-wise, his major complaint to me was that he had found our chicken meat ‘rather tough’ – for which I had no ready answer!

One of my regrets was that I had an open invitation to visit him and be his houseguest in Madrid anytime, which I had never taken up.

I can still hear the sound of his Spanish-affected voice shouting aloud ‘Ah-ya-ya-ya-yah!!’ every time that something had surprised or annoyed him – which was not too often as patience was his middle name; the other was great tolerance.

Parrondo had worked right up till he was 91; his final film was in 2012 – a Sherlock Holmes movie called ‘Madrid Days’.

God rest your beautiful soul, my dear Gil.

Dean Semler is an Australian cinematographer and assistant director. He started his feature film career in 1976 and made his name in George Miller’s 1981 runaway hit ‘Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior’, which had starred Mel Gibson.

In 1985, he returned for ‘Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome’, followed by box-office hits like ‘Cocktail’ (1988) and ‘Young Guns’ (1988).

Milius the director hand-picked Semler for ‘Farewell to the King’in 1987. During the filming in Kuching, Semler’s wife Anne had choreographed the dancing seen in some of the scenes (many great dance sequences ended up on the cutting room floor).

In 1990, Semler won the ‘Cinematographer Oscar’ for Kevin Costner’s directing debut ‘Dances with Wolves’— that year, it had also won ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’.

Among his other credits were ‘Waterworld’ (1995); ‘We Were Soldiers’ (2002); ‘Apocalypto’ (2006) and ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey’ (2011).

Andrew Lesnie, another Australian, was assistant cameraman to Semler on ‘Farewell to the King’. He was born on Jan 1, 1956, and was only 31 years old when he came to Kuching in 1987.

He had his start doing television work from 1979 and started feature film with an early Kylie Minogue’s teen movie called ‘The Delinquents’.

In 2001, Peter Jackson brought Lesnie on board to shoot the first of his ‘Lord of the Rings’ (LOTR) trilogy called ‘The Fellowship of the Rings’; followed subsequently by ‘The Two Towers’ and ‘The Return of the King’, in 2002 and 2003, respectively.

Lesnie won his Oscar for ‘Best Cinematography’ for the first LOTR film in 2001.

He continued on to complete the latter LOTR trilogy of The Hobbit from 2012 till 2014; and had just completed the Russell Crowe-starrer ‘The Water Diviner’ his last film in 2014.

On April 27, 2015, Lesnie died of a heart attack. He was only 59 years old.

The next major feature film shot in Sarawak, which had featured two Oscar alumni, was an IFC production directed by Danish Kristian Levring in a Dogma-styled period piece called ‘The Intended’ in 2002.

Brenda Fricker was an Irish actress born in Dublin and had won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1989’s ‘My Left Foot’, which had her playing another Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis’ mother.

Her role in the Sarawak-based movie was small, as ‘Mrs Jones’, an Englishwoman who was running an outpost in the middle of the jungle, of which the set was constructed inside a durian plantation at Siburan, 17 miles from Kuching.

Fricker was only in Kuching briefly as her role was a minor one. She was 57 when she was in Sarawak – she celebrated her 79th birthday last week.

Olympia Dukakis was the daughter of Greek immigrants to the USA. Born on June 20, 1931, she passed away in May 2021 at age 89.

She had played the role of ‘Erina’, the not-too-bright Russian housekeeper/nanny in ‘The Intended’, giving a performance that received much acclaim from movie critics.

Dukakis was held in high esteem by her peers and received many accolades for her body of work on the stage, in cinema and also on television.

Dukakis won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in 1987’s ‘Moonstuck’ as Rose, the mother of Cher, who won her Best Actress Oscar too for her role in the same film.

Other than these six notable Oscar winners, there were five outstanding Academy members who had received Oscar nominations – and they have all worked in Sarawak as well.

Nick Nolte, who starred in ‘Farewell to the King’, received three nominations between 1991 and 2011; Best Actor in 1991 in ‘The Prince of Tides, ‘Affliction’ (1997) and for Best Supporting Actor in ‘Warrior’ (2011).

He has only won a Golden Globe in 1991 for ‘The Prince of Tides’.

Janet McTeer, who had starred in ‘The Intended’ in 2002, received two nominations – for her role in ‘Tumbleweeds’ as Best Actress, and in ‘Albert Nobbs’ for Best Supporting Actress.

So far, she too has only won a Golden Globe for ‘Tumbleweeds’ in 1999.

Brenda Blethyn was twice nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in ‘Secrets and Lies’ in 1996, and again for ‘Little Voice’ in 1998. She won the Golden Globe for ‘Secrets and Lies’.

Bob Hoskins got a Best Actor Oscar nomination for ‘Mona Lisa’ in 1986, and had gone on to win the Golden Globe for the same role that year.

Hoskins died on April 29, 2014, at age 71.

Lastly, we come to a director who had actually won an Oscar in a different category – writing!

Milius, the director of ‘Farewell to the King’ and more famously known for ‘The Wind and the Lion’ (with Sean Connery); ‘Conan the Barbarian’ (with Arnold Schwarzenegger), ‘Red Dawn’ and ‘Flight of the Intruder’, had won for screenplay for ‘Apocalypse Now’ in 1979.

So there we have it all – those working in the tourism industry should make full use of these interesting titbits and my anecdotes of the big name Hollywood stars who have made their way to Kuching, stayed for a while and actually made wonderful movies in our beautiful state of Sarawak.

Lights, camera and action! We are still ‘Asia’s Best Kept Secret!’

Source:
courtesy of THE BORNEO POST

by The Borneo Post

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