Putting the "Cars" in Oscars

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Getting the cavalcade of stars to the walkway at the Kodak Theater requires legions of invisible professionals. I’m not talking about the stylists, hairdressers, spray-tan appliers, plastic surgeons, pube waxers, cocaine dealers, or coffee colonic tube inserters who make the celebs presentable enough to perambulate for the paparazzi. I’m talking about the folks who actually physically get them there. And by “folks,” I mean “cars.” Somewhere between 800 and 1,000 vehicles parade toward Hollywood and Highland on Oscar night, moving along in a carefully choreographed convoy, like the Pacific Coast highway the night of an Obama fundraiser. But while you might picture a stream of identical limos choking Sunset, there’s actually a great deal of variety in this star-studded traffic jammy. “Each of our regular clients usually goes with a specific, requested vehicle,” Rod Rave, the compellingly porno-named executive vice president of global operations for Empire CLS Limousine told me. “Their vehicle and their chauffeur.” Empire is one of the largest suppliers of vehicles to the ceremony (providing around 230 this year). And as a self-proclaimed “lifestyle company” they place a special emphasis on making sure that their Oscar offerings are, as Rave said, “a good fit for our clients’ lifestyles,”. This means being as aware of the industry zeitgeist as a Malibu trainer, and knowing when to shift from pilates (Prius) to metabolic disturbance (Mercedes Diesel). “Right now, the big trend is being environmentally conscious, and showing responsibility to the environment,” Rave explained. The vehicular translation? While the Hollywood elite moved away from big S.U.V.s for the event a few years back, the 2010 Oscar vogue is for…big S.U.V.s, albeit battery-aided versions like the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid and GMC Yukon Hybrid. “These are the vehicles of choice for our clients this year,” Rave said. In addition, as the “optics” of a full-sized stretch limo or even a standard luxo-barge have trended negative for top-tier nominees, Rod told me that you can also expect an influx of full-sized luxury hybrid sedans, like the brand new Mercedes S400, or the sticky-pedaled Lexus 600H: good news for folks like me and Joan Rivers, who have been praying for something to unintentionally accelerate over Victoria Beckham!

But don’t think that all this premeditation means that every vehicle disgorging clients onto the crimson rug is a reflection of the rider’s personal choices. Places like Empire are at the peak of the livery food chain, with cars hired directly by the stars, and outfitted according to their preferences. (“They might want a particular champagne stocked in the bar,” Rod Rave told me. “And once, someone asked us to purchase a puppy and leave it in the car as a gift.”) Vehicles for lesser-known and lower-profile nominees are often coordinated by logistics cogs at the studios. And, like everything in cachet-conscious Tinseltown—from the catering to the male escorts—the folks in the lower echelons get lower quality.

“If there were 500 nominees on the list,” my friend Willie Reale told me, “I probably was number 489.” Reale was nominated for an Oscar in 2007 for best original song ("Patience," from Dreamgirls). This isn’t exactly a five-star category to begin with. But to further detract from his status, he was up against the perfect storm of Oscar contenders—lesbian cancer-survivor Melissa Etheridge, singing the theme song to Democratic cheated-hero Al Gore’s deified environmental salvo, An Inconvenient Truth. So when Willie and his wife—Broadway producer Jenny Gersten—arrived at the valet stand prior to the ceremony, there was no hand-selected hybrid silently idling. There was a standard-issue sedan. “I have to say,” Willie told me, “it wasn’t the newest Town Car I’d ever seen. And when we got in, there was this distinct…musky smell.” As they got underway, it also became clear that their driver—a gentleman in his mid-60s—had been pulled out of retirement for this job, and from somewhere that was not exactly Beverly Hills. He didn’t offer them their favorite particular Champagne, instead proffering discount cream soda from a Styrofoam cooler. He struggled with the car’s navigation system like your great-grandma trying to set up her Skype account. And he seemed confounded by the city’s geography despite being on Sunset Boulevard, and following a creeping line of 1,000 other cars.

To condition his growing nervousness, and that of his passengers, the driver began talking rapidly about all the celebrities he’d chauffeured in the past, alighting on folks like Lucille Ball, Elizabeth Taylor, and the cast of Frasier. But each of these tales was underlined by a peculiar tic. “Hmmm,” he mused, “I forget the name of Elizabeth Taylor’s dog.” Or “I think it was a chocolate lab that was on Frasier.” As they crept closer to their destination and the anecdotes mounted, the riders began to draw a somewhat startling conclusion. “We were looking around at all the fancy limos with the real stars in them,” Jenny said. And given their driver, and their vehicle, and the odd smell, “it became clear that, as the nominee for the best original song that’s not going to win, this is where we’d been assigned. We got put in a pet limo.”

Decidedly not in a canine carrier will be guests of the fabled Oscars wingding we here at Vanity Fair throw on awards night. After a three-year run with my beloved Wreath-and-Crest brand, Cadillac, last year, V.F. teamed up with BMW to launch their new flagship 7-Series sedan at the event. This year, following the aforementioned good-greenie trend, we’ll be transporting notables and Very-V.I.P.s in a fleet of the Teutons’ soon to be released ActiveHybrid 7 and ActiveHybrid X6. I talked to V.F.’s associate publisher, creative services, Anjali Lewis, as she was shuttling around L.A. in one of the new Big Batteried Bimmers, preparing for the nine Vanity Fair-sponsored charitable events that lead up to Sunday’s big bash “I’ve just driven in Los Angeles for the very first time today,” Anjali said from the Hybrid 7. “And, well, they don’t call this car The Ultimate Driving Machine for nothing. It practically drives you.” Two hands on the wheel, darling! We don’t want anyone plowing down Posh until the cameras are running and Joan’s there to see it.

Brett Berk writes gaily about culture, politics, and cars for VF.com, and is the author of The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting. Visit him at www.brettberk.com Or follow him on Twitter.