Written by my aunt Iris

Source: http://youoffendmeyouoffendmyfamily.com/my-fathers-night-at-the-oscars/

• January 20, 2010
• Author: Iris

It was about 3 years ago today that I was having dinner with my father and he declared to me that he had already bought his suit. “What suit?” I asked? “For the Academy Awards,” he said. “You’re going to get nominated.”

I was flattered, but so far, while the film itself was doing well with award nominations, Letters from Iwo Jima had not garnered a single screenplay nomination. Not by the WGA, not by the Golden Globes, not by any other major award. So I told him, “I hope you can return it.”

But he insisted that the Rafu Shimpo said I was likely to be nominated, and the word of the Rafu Shimpo was like the word of God. “Well, OK, if I get to go, you can be my date,” I said, not really expecting to have to live up to the promise.

The 79th Academy Award Nominations were announced on Jan. 27, 2007, and The Rafu Shimpo was right after all and my date to the Oscars would be my father.

The actual day of the Oscars was kind of like going to your own wedding. Contrary to what people think, no one offers writers free dresses, but the studio provided hair & make-up, and a limo came to pick us up to take us to the event.

The Red Carpet was mostly a blur. There were strobes of flashing lights and people yelling all over the place to get you to look into their camera. I never thought it would happen, but someone asked what I was wearing. Should I tell them I got my dress at the Glendale Shopping Mall and I saw someone else here wearing the exact same thing? I can’t even remember what my answer was. “Something from the Galleria?” I think the flashing lights had rendered me dumb.

My dad was probably even more nervous than I was. He kept stepping on the train of my dress. I couldn’t get through 5 steps without a sudden jerk on the back of my dress and I’d fall backwards. I heard people in the stand snicker at us. I kept telling my dad, “Stop stepping on my dress!” Thankfully, there were plenty of actual celebrities just coming around behind us to divert all the attention–Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, Paul Haggis, Al Gore, etc.

Things were going smoother with the dress, I thought, as I stopped feeling the sudden backward tugs and then I realized that it was because my father was no longer behind me. I looked back and saw my dad talking into a mike with a reporter from a Japanese TV station. Apparently, now he was giving his own interviews.

Seated in the auditorium, we could see all the lovely people. Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorcese. Those people were upfront center. Our seats were off to the side, at the very end of the furthest aisle. I was closest to the aisle, then my father, then Paul Haggis and his wife. My father’s friends reported seeing him several times on TV due to his close proximity to Paul Haggis. I think there was one shot of my right shoulder throughout the whole ceremony.

My father had probably seen three English-language movies at the theater in his life–Jaws, Star Wars, and Flags of Our Fathers. So the only person he probably recognized there was Al Gore. When I had first announced to my father that I was going to be working with Clint Eastwood, he had asked “Who’s that?” But still, he was beaming from ear to ear and was quite chatty when he got to meet the director during the post party.

Weeks later, my father gave me a copy of the Rafu Shimpo. He showed me the article titled “Dr. Yamashita’s Red Carpet Experience”. A journalist had interviewed him to get his play by play account of the night’s events.

My father was a hard man to impress. Up until then, I think overall, he felt pretty disappointed about us kids–mainly because neither I nor my sister had become doctors or even married doctors. But the Oscars allowed him to gloat for years. He had pictures pasted all over the office lobby of his ophthalmology practice. In his holiday greetings, he enclosed a flyer “Congratulations to my daughter, nominated for an Oscar!” He sent them to all his patients along with his business calendar.

Little did we know then that he would pass away from cancer in April 2009. Afterwards, a family friend told me, “It was a good thing you gave him the Oscars.” It was true. I felt good that I had given him his moment. For that one day, he was the shining star.

with dad on the way to the Oscars