Sunday night, several students will be relaxing in front of the television at 8 p.m. watching the 79th annual Academy Awards. A few might even dream of being on the red carpet, either because of their own accomplishments or because of their aspirations to date one of Hollywood's hottest. While these people might just fantasize, some IU students have turned their red carpet dreams into reality later in life, and others got to their five minutes of fame standing in as extras in an Oscar-winning film shot on campus.
MICHAEL USLAN
Michael Uslan, who is perhaps best known for producing Batman movies, has taken several trips down the red carpet. Every Batman movie except "Batman and Robin" has been nominated for an Oscar, but his original "Batman" is the only one that garnered a statuette. It won Best Art Direction-Set Decoration in 1990.\nUslan said that night at the Academy Awards was a wonderful one. He and his wife, Nancy, attended the event with Uslan's friend Anton Furst, who was the artistic mastermind behind the movie.\n"What he did was revolutionary because no one had done a serious dark comic movie," Uslan said of Furst's work.\nFurst designed the entire look of the picture, including Gotham City and the Batmobile, Uslan said. After Furst accepted the Oscar and talked with the press, he brought it back to the Uslans.\n"He handed the Oscar to my wife, Nancy, and said, 'This is too heavy, you hold this,'" Uslan said. "She cradled it around all night."\nUslan studied history, education and law in Bloomington and said he couldn't be doing what he does today without his seven years at IU.\n"It's a producer's job to understand what people in middle America and all over the country think," Uslan said. "I have a better understanding of what mainstream America is interested in."\nUslan realized one of his life goals was to make a dark, serious Batman movie while he was sitting at his desk in his apartment off of East 10th Street, but it took him 14 years to accomplish his college dream.\n"It was a human endurance contest for many years to try to get that first movie made," Uslan said.\nUslan kept getting turned down by studios who told him his ideas were crazy and that they stunk.\n"I guess I'm in good company because George Lucas was turned down by every studio on 'Star Wars,'" Uslan said.
KEVIN KLINE
Kevin Kline won an Oscar in 1989 for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for the 1988 film "A Fish Called Wanda," according to www.IMDb.com.\nBefore Kline won an Oscar, he earned a BA in speech and theater and acting in professor William E. Kinzer's productions. Kinzer's son, John, is now director of audience development for IU's Department of Theatre and Drama. John Kinzer said his father, prior to his death in 1984, frequently spoke with Kline and visited him in New York.\n"I remember how much my father enjoyed having him as a student," Kinzer said. "He always spoke fondly of him."\nKinzer acted in several of his father's productions with Kline. Kinzer was frequently called into service when his father needed someone younger than his students for a production.\n"I was the faculty brat actor," Kinzer said.\nKinzer and Kline both performed in plays such as "On Borrowed Time" and "Macbeth," which was the first time Kline acted at IU.
HOWARD ASHMAN
Kinzer's father also knew IU alum Howard Ashman, who won Oscars with composer Alan Menken for their songs "Under the Sea" in 1989's "The Little Mermaid" and the title track of 1991's "Beauty and the Beast." He won for "Beauty and the Beast" posthumously.\nTwo days after he won an Oscar for "Under the Sea," Ashman confided in Menken that he had AIDS, according to IMdb.com. Despite the terminal illness, Ashman never stopped composing songs and turned out more songs for 1992's "Aladdin" before his death from AIDS on March 14, 1991, at the age of 40, according to IMDb.com.
BREAKING AWAY
Not only has IU educated Oscar winners, the campus itself was part of the 1979 film "Breaking Away," which won Best Writing, Screenplay Directly for the Screen in 1980, according to IMDb.com. IU Chancellor Ken Gros Louis said everyone was worried that it would be a bad movie.\n"Breaking Away" was filmed out of sequence, like many other movies, so people couldn't figure out what the story was, Gros Louis said.\nThe film had its opening in the IU Auditorium and everyone went with great apprehension to see it, Gros Louis said.\n"A very loud sigh of relief was heard in the auditorium," Gros Louis said.\nDean of Students Richard McKaig was also at IU during the filming of "Breaking Away."\n"My memory is fuzzy, but I remember watching trucks and equipment being moved about campus," McKaig said.\nMcKaig said the Little 500 race scenes were filmed in the "old stadium," which is now the Arboretum. \n"There was a lot of skepticism," McKaig said. "People didn't think it would turn out to be such a critically acclaimed movie"
