Academy Awards to have two hosts
Two actors to share duties

By The Associated Press Comments 0
Published: November 6, 2009

LOS ANGELES — Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are taking on the Oscars.

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The two Hollywood veterans will share hosting duties at the 82nd Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Tuesday.

Telecast producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman said Martin and Baldwin are "the perfect pair of hosts for the Oscars.” The producers have said they hope to resurrect Oscar’s ratings and make the show more fun by building on the changes introduced at February’s ceremony, which tinkered with the way awards were presented and featured Broadway-style musical interludes.

Bringing in a pair of hosts, while not unprecedented, continues that theme of change.

"Very early on, we talked about a pairing as part of our concept of the show, having tradition and also freshness walking hand in hand,” Shankman said in an interview Tuesday. "Steve anchors it in so much tradition and Alec … besides being a former Oscar nominee, he is just hot, hot, hot right now. And the two of them I know adore each other.”

A first in modern TV

A pair of hosts helmed the inaugural Oscar ceremony in 1929: Douglas Fairbanks and William DeMille, then president and vice president of the film academy, co-hosted the show. The last time multiple hosts graced the Oscar stage was in 1987, when Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn and Paul Hogan shared hosting duties.

"In the modern television era, this is the first time there will be two co-hosts on the same stage,” academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger said Tuesday.

Hugh Jackman sang and danced as host of last year’s Academy Awards, which saw a ratings boost from the previous year. The 41-year-old actor declined to reprise his hosting role before Mechanic and Shankman were named as producers.

Splitting hosting duties between two funny fellows ups the show’s fun factor, Mechanic said — "taking a little starch out of the shirts, so to speak.”

"We can move things along more easily by taking out some of the stilted banter that goes on between presenters and let the hosts guide us through the evening,” he said Tuesday.

Besides the dual-host approach, the 2010 Oscars have already undergone a major makeover. The academy moved its honorary Oscars, often a long-winded affair that bogged down the ceremony, to a separate event in November.