Awards Features

Indeed, the carpet has becomes quite a madhouse with an astounding 1,896 press credentials issued (including technical personnel) on the 500-foot-long famous red strip.

But this was not always the case. When the Academy Awards were first handed out in 1929, the stars were there, but the flashbulb frenzy was not.

Variety's Army Archerd, who stepped onto the carpet in 1948 while working for the Associated Press, recalls a simpler time when stars like Cary Grant, Ava Gardner and Gregory Peck would get out of their limos, wave to fans, chat with Archerd, pose for a few photos and then head inside the theater.

"It used to be a very intimate thing," he says. "The red carpet has now become an industry."

Archerd manned the carpet alone for decades, interviewing hundreds of stars at all the different Oscar venues -- the Shrine, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Santa Monica Civic Center and the Kodak Theater. And he has plenty of stories: He remembers spotting Sacheen Littlefeather waiting to go onstage for Marlon Brando in 1973 and recalls how Joan Crawford's dressing room was a favorite hangout since she kept a cooler marked Pepsi-Cola (her husband served as company chairman) that was actually filled with vodka.

Although the red carpet has certainly changed over the years, Archerd says the one thing that has stayed consistent is the fans' enthusiasm: "I always say everybody has two businesses, their own and showbiz."

In the late '70s another young reporter named Regis Philbin arrived on the red carpet. "I was working at KABC covering movies for the news, and one of my producers, Frank Kelley, said, 'Why don't we go down and cover people arriving for the Academy Awards.'"

Philbin and a small TV crew set up shop at the Music Center and waited for guests to arrive. This year, Philbin returns to host the red carpet preshow for ABC and says he is quite surprised by what it has become.

"Over the years I would say to Frank Kelley, look what happened to our little show. Can you believe this?"

Like Archerd, Philbin has fond memories of his early days on the red carpet. "They were real movie stars in that day, and it was a thrill to meet them. I remember going into one of the awards rehearsals and seeing Cary Grant onstage. It was something."