Gongs for the good and bad
QUESTION Has anyone won an Oscar and a Razzie in the same year?
THE Golden Raspberry Awards, popularly known as The Razzies, are a parody award show held a day before the Oscars, honouring the worst performances from Hollywood the previous year.
Established by US film buff John J. B. Wilson, the first Golden Raspberry Awards were held on March 31, 1981. To date, three people have won Razzies and Oscars in the same year – albeit it not for the same work.
In 1993, composer Alan Menken, along with lyricist Jack Feldman, was awarded the Razzie for Worst Original Song for High Times,
Hard Times, a song from the film Newsies, a Disney musical about newspaper boys featuring a young Christian Bale. The lyrics were quite excruciating: ‘High times, Hard times Sometimes the living is sweet And sometimes there’s nothing to eat But I always land on my feet’ The next day Menken won the Oscar for best Original Song for A Whole New World from Disney’s Aladdin, this time lyrics were provided by Tim Rice. To date Menken has eight Oscars.
In 1998, Brian Helgeland won the award for Worst Screenplay for his work on the Kevin Costner film The Postman. Helgeland subsequently picked up the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for L.A. Confidential.
In a later interview he revealed that he had put his Oscar and Razzie side-by-side on the shelf to remind him of ‘the quixotic nature of Hollywood’.
The most famous occasion was when Sandra Bullock showed up, in person, to the 2010 Golden Raspberry Award ceremony at the Barnsdall Theatre in Hollywood. She was accompanied by three people wearing black ‘Team Bullock’ T-shirts and pulling a brightred trolley full of All About Steve DVDs, the film that earned her the Worst Actress award.
The very next day, Bullock won the Best Actress Oscar for The Blind Side.
She wasn’t the first celebrity to show up in person to the awards. Paul Verhoeven received a standing ovation when he accepted Worst Picture and Worst Director awards for the 1995 film Showgirls, at the Razzie ceremony at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
QUESTION Maurice Pratt was once a regular on Irish TV screens, fronting Quinnsworth adverts. What was his connection with the supermarket chain?
IN the 1990s, Maurice Pratt usually fronted TV and radio commercials for the Quinnsworth supermarket chain, which is now Tesco Ireland, and he ended up his career with Quinnsworth as managing director.
Pratt, who comes from south Dublin and was educated at St Benildus College in Kilmacud and at the College of Commerce in Rathmines, started his career as a junior media executive with a Dublin advertising agency. A new and dynamic ad agency came along called Des O’Meara & Partners, which won the Quinnsworth advertising account in 1986. It was then worth IR£1million a year.
Maurice Pratt then joined Des O’Meara & Partners and began working on the Quinnsworth account. Before too long, he changed sides and started working for the client.
After two years with the O’Meara ad agency, Pratt joined Quinnsworth as its marketing manager. It was then decided that he should front the advertising campaigns for the supermarket group.
He became well-known nationally for his numerous appearances and his catchphrase about Quinnsworth: ‘That’s real value.’
Pratt also helped promote Quinnsworth’s new own-label brand, called Yellow Pack. But Yellow Pack soon became a catchphrase for anything that was cheap and nasty. All these years after the brand was invented, Yellow Pack is still used as a derogatory term when a product or service is considered second rate.
Pratt wasn’t the first person to appear on screen promoting Quinnsworth. The chain was created by Pat Quinn, a Leitrim-born entrepreneur who gained much retailing experience in Canada before returning home to set up his own supermarket chain.
Quinn opened his first Quinnsworth branch at the Stillorgan Shopping Centre when it opened in 1966.
He appeared in all his own TV commercials and became noted as a short, bald man who always wore white polo neck sweaters.
As for Maurice Pratt, he moved up the management scale at Quinnsworth, becoming the managing director. Tesco had pulled out of the Irish market in 1986 after a disastrous performance, but in 1997 the UK chain returned when it paid Associated British Foods IR£800million for Quinnsworth. Pratt had been managing director at the time of the takeover and he stayed long enough in that position – a year – to see the start of Tesco embedding itself in the Irish market once more and begin the process of rebranding the Quinnsworth stores with the Tesco logo.
From Quinnsworth, he moved to C&C, the cider and soft drinks company, where he remained managing director until 2008.
Since then, he has held directorships in many companies and in some cases, became chairman. He has been a director of Brown Thomas, vice chairman of Boyne Valley Foods and chair of the European Movement in Ireland.
He was also chairman of Barrettstown, the camp for seriously ill children.
He is currently chairman of B&B Ireland and Uniphar Group, which works to improve patient access to medicines.
It’s a long time since Maurice Pratt was the frontman for Quinnsworth, the 1990s, but it’s amazing how many people still remember vividly his numerous TV appearances.
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