The New Decade 1988 Nominees

It’s nail-chewing time again. Can the excitement affect even a toughie like The Untouchables’ Sean Connery? “Aye,” says the Best Supporting Actor favorite. Nominee Olympia (Moonstruck) Dukakis likens the adrenaline flow to that of cousin Michael’s presidential campaign. Not Best Actor long shot Marcello (Dark Eyes) Mastroianni: “Many times people say, ‘Marcello, you will win.’ Never it happen. Better I forget Oscar.” Easier said than done for those below.

Kirk’s Pride and Joy: Michael Douglas (at age 4, in 1948) gets an Oscar boost from his dad for playing Wall Street’s ruthless stock trader, a character that Kirk says “reflects one of the weaknesses of our society—greed.” Kirk’s three nominations were for his starring roles in Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful and Lust for Life. Since the elder Douglas, now 71, never captured the gold, Michael reasons his own victory would also be “great for my old man.”

Broadcast News: The smashing satire on TV reporting won nominations for its three stars, below. But don’t ask them to handicap their chances. “I just don’t want to talk about the Oscars,” says Holly Hunter. The same goes for William Hurt. Albert Brooks is more revealing: “If the others had gotten nominated and I didn’t,” he says, “I would have killed myself.”

Very Close: Nominee Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction’s psycho, was clearly expecting at the People’s Choice awards last month, but on Oscar night the mom-to-be will be within weeks of her delivery date. Many think she’s due in other ways, despite the backlash over what one critic calls “the mainstream tawdriness” of her film. For her big night, Glenn will attend with the Fatal crew, who, she says, “made me feel protected and loved.” Even competitor Cher thinks Glenn will win the gold.

A Family’s Hope for Glory: When writer-director John Boorman (center) filmed his childhood memories of London during the Blitz, he brought his mother (right), sister (far left) and two aunts (left and far right) down to the set to meet the cast (back row) who were acting out their lives. The film, Hope and Glory, won five Oscar nominations. Most of the family is delighted. But John says his mother, 86, “completely let me down.” At the premiere, she said, “Personally, I prefer a good thriller.”

Foreign Exchange: For The Last Emperor, a $23 million epic of China, director Bernardo Bertolucci (above, with actor Wu Tao) finds himself in a historic Oscar race. For the first time, no American—not even Broadcast News’s James L. Brooks, whose film won seven nominations including Best Picture—has been nominated for Best Director. If many Yanks are dismayed, Bertolucci is not. “In the darkness of theaters,” says the 47-year-old Italian, “there are no more national identities.”

Cher Wear: Moonstruck’s nominee shocked the Oscar crowd with her feathers in 1986. Her duds this time “will not be that insane,” she vows, adding that her pal Meryl Streep has offered her “a brown turtleneck and jumper.” No way, says Cher: “I will not even show up in a business suit unless it’s beaded.”