And the Oscar goes to…well, not stunt performers.

Stunt performers, the men and women who continuously risk their lives on movie sets, jump from burning buildings, flip a car going 140 mph and so on, all for the love of the movies, have been denied their request for a stunt-based Academy Award.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday that its Board of Governors had voted against granting stunt performers a category at the 78th Academy Awards.

“At a time when the Academy is trying to find ways to reduce the numbers of statuettes given out, and looks at categories with an eye more focused on reduction than addition, the board is simply not prepared to institute any new annual awards categories,” Academy President Frank Pierson said in a statement Wednesday.

Last Wednesday, the four major stunt groups–Stunts Unlimited, Brand X, the Stuntmen’s Association of Motion Pictures and the International Stunt Association– launched their campaign, while about 75 men and women demonstrated outside Academy headquarters, performing stunts to draw attention to their cause.

In a joint statement, the four groups say, “Stunt performers are the only faction of the movie industry that must literally risk their lives for the sake of their art. The talent and expertise that is required of a stunt coordinator to be both creative and safe is enormous and highly deserving of Academy recognition.”

The stunt performers also say they have a petition signed by celebrity A-listers such as Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Jerry Bruckheimer, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas and Arnold Schwarzenegger that says stunt coordinators merit an Oscar category.

The last major new Oscar category, Best Animated Feature, took a decade of petitioning to make the ballot, and was approved in 2000 for the 2002 Oscars.

Prior to that, the last time the 42-member board created a category was in 1981 for Best Makeup.

The coalition of stunt performers said it would seek a face-to-face meeting with the Board of Governors to demand a further explanation.

The 78th Annual Academy Awards will be held March 5, 2006 at Hollywood’s Kodak Theater.






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