Oscars to mix old, new in show

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

The Oscars are still over a month away, but producers already are spilling secrets: Co-host James Franco can and will sing.

The show will honor Oscar’s 83-year history by presenting some awards during mini tributes to classic movies, performances and eras.

And there will be at least one element in the show that first appeared on an Oscar telecast 40 years ago.

First-time Oscar producing pair Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer are mixing old and new for the 83rd annual Academy Awards, driven by their love of film, tradition and the power of the big show.

“We both had a lifetime of ideas stored up of what we’d want to do if we were producing the show,” Cohen says.

A film and television producer for 20 years, he “fell in love” with the Academy Awards when he first watched them with his grandmothers at age 8. He started practicing his acceptance speech in the mirror that year, and his practice paid off when he won the best picture Oscar for 1999’s “American Beauty.”

“Right around that year, I started thinking that a next phase with the show is I would love to produce it someday,” says Cohen.

Cohen tapped Mischer — a multiple Emmy winner who has produced and directed Super Bowl halftime shows and the Kennedy Center Honors — to be his partner.

Despite such varied experience over his 35-year career, Mischer says putting on the Oscars is “different and unique.”

“We have the reputation of the predominant American art form to protect and spread the message to the world,” says the gray-haired, bespectacled Mischer. “This will be watched by billions of people when you put it all together, so you do feel that sense of responsibility.”