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Oscar magic brewing in grimy Chicago factory
2007-01-20
A bit of Oscar magic is brewing in a grimy Chicago factory where the statues that starlets will raise above their heads are being forged in smoking vats of bubbling britannia. The pewter-like metal cools quickly. But its speedy birth at the hands of Anacleto Medina, who has cast every Oscar made in the past 24 years, is followed by six to eight weeks of growing pains. It will spend most of the time locked in a safe while it cools and dries but it will take 40 hours of precise and delicate work to be made ready for the bright lights of Hollywood. The eight-and-a-half pound (3.9-kilogramme) statue will be buffed, polished, dipped in electrically-charged bins of molten copper, nickel, silver and 24-carat gold, and then lacquered to a blinding shine before it is screwed into its post. Nearly ever person in the factory will have their hands on the statue at some point in the process. And if anyone finds a flaw it will be sliced in half and melted down as scrap. R.S. Owens has been making handcrafted awards and trophies for more than 60 years. It currently holds contracts to produce scores of awards such as the Emmys, the MTV Video Music Awards and the Nascar Nextel Cup and has a bustling business taking custom orders from companies around the world. But while many contracts many be more profitable, none compare to the prestige of the Oscars. Just 55 to 60 of the statues are made every year and the Academy of Motion Pictures keeps a close eye on them, especially after they were stolen from a shipping dock in 2000. That was a rough year for R.S. Owens. They had just 10 days to replace the whole batch and managed to make 30 by working 24 hours a day. The rest came from the Academy's private store -- since nobody knows how many people will receive awards until the envelopes are opened, the Academy likes to have extras on hand. R.S. Owens is only allowed to keep five Oscars for their showroom, catalogue and trade shows. Each statue is given a serial number and stamped with the Academy's copyright. And nobody is allowed to take one home as a souvenir. Stars get to keep their Oscar for about a month before they send it back to the Academy to be engraved. That job falls to Louise White, 52. She receives a list of the winners shortly after the show and spends a day or two lining up gold plates on her engraving machine. Her most memorable plate was the honorary award given to Peter O'Toole in 2003. R.S. Owens is allowed two tickets to the Oscars and White's husband had gotten them that year in honor of 47 years of service. The company paid for their plane ticket, hotel, and even dinner at the Polo Club, where they spotted Colin Farrell and Patrick Stewart. Unlike Anacleto Medina, who will attend the Oscars this year with his wife Maria, White and her husband didn't get to walk the red carpet. It was the year the Oscars were nearly cancelled because of the start of the Iraq war and much of the festivities were curtailed for the sake of security and propriety. But it was still an enchanting weekend, White said. "The biggest thrill was the honorary award Peter O'Toole got because I got to engrave it before I went and I got to see him receive it," she said. "I felt like jumping up and saying: 'Yes! I made that!' But of course you can't do that."
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