Smoking drama's real-life star snags Oscar ticket

Smoking drama's real-life star snags Oscar ticket
REUTERS

LOS ANGELES, MARCH 26: After being wait-listed for an invitation, come Oscar night, The Insider will not be left outside after all. Jeffrey Wigand, the former Brown and Williamson scientist whose public accusations against the tobacco industry inspired best picture nominee The Insider, has a ticket to this weekend's ceremony, a spokesman for Walt Disney Co said this week.

Disney film units made and distributed the movie, but Wigand was not initially invited to the Oscar ceremony since the company was only allotted a certain number of tickets and had to take care of studio executives and nominees first, the spokesman said. He will, however, will be in attendance today, according to Disney. Wigand's testimony that tobacco companies knew for decades that smoking was addictive paved the way for historic settlements between cigarette makers and state governments. These so far total nearly 250 billion dollars and threaten to bankrupt the industry.

The Insider was reportedly backed by former Disney studio President Joe Roth rather than chairman Michael Eisner. Besides Best Picture, the movie is nominated for six other academy awards, including Best Actor for Russell Crowe, who portrayed Wigand, and Best Director.

Yet despite accolades from critics, the film generated controversy in Hollywood. The most predictable complainer was Brown and Williamson. Based in Lexington, Kentucky, the subsidiary of British American Tobacco Plc. Makes Kools, Lucky Strikes and other brands of cigarettes.

A spokesman for the company, which polled moviegoers to gauge consumer reaction to the film, said this week it was still considering legal action against Disney. Wigand was fired by Brown and Williamson in March 1993. The company was especially critical of a key scene in the movie showing the silhouette of a bullet in Wigand's mailbox and implying that he received death threats. There have been allegations that Wigand put the bullet there himself.

Dramatic license taken with other aspects of the story, including a much exaggerated role for "60 minutes'' producer Lowell Bergman, played by Al Pacino, led to other complaints from the story's real-life counterparts. The movie shows Wigand and Bergman teaming up to fight not only tobacco companies but also the CBS television network, the home of "60 minutes.'' Lawyers at CBS initially killed the Wigand story, citing fears of legal action from Brown and Williamson under the terms of Wigand's severance agreement. But others said the network opposed the story because it was completing its sale to Westinghouse Electric Corp. And was worried that a lawsuit might spoil the deal.

Credits for The Insider state that "although based on a true story, certain events have been fictionalized for dramatic effect.'' Director Michael Mann has reportedly said he was interested in exploring "the weight of the antagonism of two large corporations targeting two individuals'' and had no intention of making a docudrama. "60 minutes'' anchor Mike Wallace, portrayed as less than heroic by Christopher Plummer in the movie, complained to Disney that he had been misrepresented.

Wigand's reputation has also been stained by accusations by his former wife, Lucretia Nimocks, that he beat her during their marriage. She has threatened to file a lawsuit against Disney for allegedly disparaging her in the film as self-absorbed and worried mostly about losing a high standard of living. Wigand now heads Smoke-free Kids, a charity designed to educate American children about the tobacco industry.