Hollywood veterans like to say it's an honour just to be nominated for an Oscar. Taylor Hackford got that honour for directing Ray. And that's all he'll get.



Hollywood veterans like to say it's an honour just to be nominated for an Oscar. Taylor Hackford got that honour for directing Ray. And that's all he'll get.

No Ray of Oscar hope for director
By BRUCE KIRKLAND - Toronto Sun

Hollywood veterans like to say it's an honour just to be nominated for an Oscar. Taylor Hackford got that honour for directing Ray. And that's all he'll get.

No one expects his name to be called on Sunday night. But he'll surely be mentioned during an acceptance speech, assuming Ray star Jamie Foxx does the expected and wins the best-actor prize for playing -- hell, call it channelling ... a virtual revival from the dead -- the legendary singer Ray Charles.

The last time Hackford was at the Oscars as a nominee, he was a no-name film-school graduate who launched his career late, in his mid-30s. When he won that night in 1979, there was little fuss. Hackford took home the prize for best live action short film for his debut effort, Teenage Father.

Since then, his directorial career has been episodic, perhaps bizarrely so for a current Oscar nominee. Hackford's first feature, The Idolmaker (1980), was a terrific, small-scale drama about the music business. But it failed to arouse audiences. Instead, the public responded when he made a formula romantic melodrama, An Officer And A Gentleman (1982), which catapulted Debra Winger and Richard Gere into new levels of stardom.

Since then, however, Hackford's career has been spotty, both artistically and commercially. The titles range from Against All Odds (1984) to more recent credits such as The Devil's Advocate (1997) and Proof Of Life (2000).

With this pedigree, the 60-year-old, Santa Barbara-born Hackford ranks as a journeyman capable of putting together a decent film and handling quality actors. That is, unless the material is just too ridiculous to elevate to acceptable levels, as was the case with The Devil's Advocate.


Oddly, he was better known as actress Helen Mirren's live-in lover than he was as a major Hollywood player. Only when he dabbled with pop music did he brush with greatness.

In 1987, he directed the ass-kicking documentary, Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, bringing it to the Toronto filmfest for a rousing sendoff, with Berry in attendance. As a producer, Hackford helped deliver La Bamba (also in 1987) and served as executive producer of Genius: A Night For Ray Charles, a 2004 TV special.

With Hackford's congenial nature, his love of the music world and his inate understanding of a musician's temperament, it was no accident that Charles trusted him -- and that Charles trusted Hackford's uncanny choice of Foxx to play the musician.

On the recently released Ray DVD, one of the singular treats is watching Hackford watching Charles jam with Foxx early in the pre-production (Charles died in 2004 without seeing the film finished). In the jam, Charles is seen trying to teach his acolyte how to play Charles-style on some tunes.

When Foxx, a classically-trained pianist who also knows his way around a soul-blues riff, gets it -- really gets it -- Charles leaps to his feet with glee.

Hackford knew then that his casting was golden. The ironical twist is that he chose Foxx for his acting, not his piano playing abilities, admitting on the DVD that he did not even know initially that Foxx had any musical background.

Another interesting twist is that Hackford owned the rights to telling Ray Charles' story for 15 years, and worked extensively with Charles on the project. But he just could not get it made.

"It was very difficult to find financing," Hackford told Entertainment Weekly. "Hollywood is not fond of biographies or black-themed movies unless they're exploitation movies. But I didn't give up."

And now Hackford is glad he waited so long. He recently told the Sun's Jane Stevenson: "Had I made the film 15 years ago, Jamie Foxx wouldn't have starred in it."

As for Foxx, his admiration for Charles remains.

"(The movie) is a beautiful testimony to Ray Charles," Foxx told Stevenson. "It's basically giving him his flowers, you know, because we lose a lot of people sometimes, and we don't get a chance to do anything about it. This is a chance for us to show the world."

When this story was posted in February 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:

The Peace Corps Library Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in over 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related reference material in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can use the Main Index to find hundreds of stories about RPCVs who have your same interests, who served in your Country of Service, or who serve in your state.

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Make a call for the Peace Corps PCOL is a strong supporter of the NPCA's National Day of Action and encourages every RPCV to spend ten minutes on Tuesday, March 1 making a call to your Representatives and ask them to support President Bush's budget proposal of $345 Million to expand the Peace Corps. Take our Poll: Click here to take our poll. We'll send out a reminder and have more details early next week.

Peace Corps Calendar:Tempest in a Teapot? Bulgarian writer Ognyan Georgiev has written a story which has made the front page of the newspaper "Telegraf" criticizing the photo selection for his country in the 2005 "Peace Corps Calendar" published by RPCVs of Madison, Wisconsin. RPCV Betsy Sergeant Snow, who submitted the photograph for the calendar, has published her reply. Read the stories and leave your comments.

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February 19, 2005: This Week's Top Stories NPCA Board positions are open for nomination 17 Feb Mike Tidwell on trial for climate action protest 17 Feb Katie Dyer is co-owner of Cadeaux du Monde 16 Feb Cyclone misses Tonga and Samoa PCVs 16 Feb Phil Hardberger in debate for Mayor of San Antonio 16 Feb Edmund Hull is Princeton Diplomat-In-Residence 16 Feb Bruce Greenlee is longtime friend of Latino community 15 Feb Mike Honda new vice chairman at DNC 15 Feb Jospeh Opala documents slave crossing from Sierra Leone 14 Feb Dear Dr. Brothers: Aren't PCVs Hippies? 14 Feb Joseph Lanning founded the World Education Fund 14 Feb Stanley Levine draws Marine and Peace Corps similarities 14 Feb Speaking Out: JFK envisioned millions of RPCVs 13 Feb Chris Aquino visits mother's homeland of Vietnam 12 Feb Is PCOL blocking users from posting messages? 12 Feb JFK Library opens Sargent Shriver Collection 1 Feb RPCV responds to Bulgaria Calendar concerns 28 Jan

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WWII participants became RPCVs Read about two RPCVs who participated in World War II in very different ways long before there was a Peace Corps. Retired Rear Adm. Francis J. Thomas (RPCV Fiji), a decorated hero of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died Friday, Jan. 21, 2005 at 100. Mary Smeltzer (RPCV Botswana), 89, followed her Japanese students into WWII internment camps. We honor both RPCVs for their service.

Bush's FY06 Budget for the Peace Corps The White House is proposing $345 Million for the Peace Corps for FY06 - a $27.7 Million (8.7%) increase that would allow at least two new posts and maintain the existing number of volunteers at approximately 7,700. Bush's 2002 proposal to double the Peace Corps to 14,000 volunteers appears to have been forgotten. The proposed budget still needs to be approved by Congress.

RPCVs mobilize support for Countries of Service RPCV Groups mobilize to support their Countries of Service. Over 200 RPCVS have already applied to the Crisis Corps to provide Tsunami Recovery aid, RPCVs have written a letter urging President Bush and Congress to aid Democracy in Ukraine, and RPCVs are writing NBC about a recent episode of the "West Wing" and asking them to get their facts right about Turkey.

RPCVs contend for Academy Awards Bolivia RPCV Taylor Hackford's film "Ray" is up for awards in six categories including best picture, best actor and best director. "Autism Is a World" co-produced by Sierra Leone RPCV Douglas Biklen and nominated for best Documentary Short Subject, seeks to increase awareness of developmental disabilities. Colombian film "El Rey," previously in the running for the foreign-language award, includes the urban legend that PCVs teamed up with El Rey to bring cocaine to U.S. soil.

Ask Not As our country prepares for the inauguration of a President, we remember one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century and how his words inspired us. "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."

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