From
an interesting article in Forbes.com:
"Later [today], when Clint Eastwood faces off against Martin Scorsese in the battle for the Academy Award for best director, they could be fighting over much more than a gold statue. Life itself could be at stake. A study by a University of Toronto physician suggests that winning an Oscar can extend a director's life-span dramatically.
In fact, Oscar-winning directors live about two years longer than those who were just nominated, the result of a 24% decrease in the risk of death over their lifetimes. Those with multiple wins saw their average risk of death decrease 48% compared to those with only one statuette.
The results -- a repeat of similar findings in actors -- are thought to provide a powerful window into the ways that success is good for us. Donald Redelmeier, a researcher at Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital, saw in Oscar winners a perfect laboratory for helping to explain 20-year-old data that show that success has a powerful influence on a person's health."
There is an interesting anomaly in this research however:
"Redelmeier and hs colleagues tried the same technique with screenwriters, and what they found shocked them. 'The screenwriters are a real anomaly,' Redelmeier says. 'Generally, they live shorter lives and their survival is not improved by winning an Oscar.'
In fact, statistically speaking, Oscar-winning writers actually die on average 3.6 years sooner their peers who are just nominated. Redelmeier offers two possible explanations. First, professional prestige has less of a direct impact on screenwriter's careers than it does on actors and directors. After all, screenplays are read anonymously and who remembers who actually wrote
Driving Miss Daisy? Another possible factor? Unhealthy lifestyles. Award-winning actors and directors wind up with entourages of personal trainers and nutritionists who make sure they take care of themselves. Writers don't. Indeed, the financial security brought on by winning an Oscar may even allow them to indulge more deeply in their unhealthy habits.
'It's very difficult to sort out the writers because their lives are lived in such obscurity,' he says."
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Comments (2)
It's been well documented that women directors make fewer films than our male counterparts, for a variety of reasons -- sometimes by choice, sometimes not. While things are changing, the playing field has not been an equal one, so instances of women directors nominated for Oscars (the documentary being the exception) are few and far between; nominations among female writers are slightly more common.
Meanwhile, it's been well documented that women live longer than men. Does our comparitive invisibility at the Oscars as filmmakers even out with our famous longevity? (And, even when a great editor -- well-known for her contribution to a great director's career -- gets recognition, she refuses to take credit for her own gifts! A little humble is okay: totally self-effacing -- at the OSCARS! -- is unfortunate. )
You don't need a study from Forbes to know that success and health go together, but success in the high-stakes business of film can only follow on the heels of opportunity, possibility, confidence, and visibility! Someday, women filmmakers will be as visible at the Oscars as they are in Filmmaker Magazine; many of us are looking forward to a future where many many more of the best pictures and best director nominees will be women. I imagine those Oscar winners will live very very long lives.
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posted by @ 2/28/2005 7:04 PM
i couldn't help but observe what an incredible specimen is clint eastwood in terms of health, looks and vitality in addition to his prodigious film career, all of which he wears with amazing modesty and humility. But what a skewed piece of so-called research, one can't help but observe. i mean, why not take a poll of millionaires ? or kings of england ? what does this reflect, anyway - an unhealthy preoccupation with winners - winner ideology that runs rampant through the film community, both mainstream and indie. and what statistically is two years, anyway ? and probably in the case of women filmmakers, if they took the same poll, it would show them
falling off from stress and
heart disease for goodness sake !
-- philippa
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posted by @ 2/28/2005 7:21 PM
