The “In Memoriam” section of Sunday’s Oscars may have garnered praise for its heartfelt tributes to big stars from Diane Keaton to Robert Redford, but several key figures were left out.
For Geoff Keathley, one surprising omission stuck with him. His father, David Keathley, was an IMAX pioneer, serving as the company’s first chief quality officer and overseeing post-production for more than 500 IMAX films.
Keighley, the organizer and founder of The Game Awards (often ironically referred to as the “Oscars of Games”), tagged key members of AMPAS in an Instagram post and was quick to slam the academy for excluding his father.
By Monday, he shared that AMPAS/Oscar CEO Bill Kramer appeared to have blocked him on Instagram. “Being blocked from Instagram by the CEO of the Academy was a childish and unprofessional response to a very sincere expression of sadness and disappointment,” Keathley exclusively told Page Six Hollywood.
“Last night I was sitting with my mom, who is also an Academy voter, and we were watching that segment on her TV. I never expected there would be such a huge tribute to my dad, but the fact that even a simple duplication of his name and face was left out was heartbreaking, especially since he did so much in the medium of film,” Keeley added.
David (also an Academy member for more than 40 years) passed away last September at the age of 77 after a battle with cancer. After his death, he was touted by major filmmakers such as Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, Denis Villeneuve, and Francis Ford Coppola.
“We know it’s a thankless task to put these montages together and it’s difficult to thread the needle, but even the slightest mention in the show was more than adequate and warranted,” Keathley says. “There appears to be a secret committee that decides who appears on the broadcast. You have to wonder about that process, the composition of the committee, and what information is used to evaluate their accomplishments. The online AMPAS obituary refers to him as an ‘executive and film technician,’ so it is questionable whether the committee was fully aware of his pivotal role.”
Other notable names excluded from the Oscar category include Eric Dane, James Van Der Beek, Brigitte Bardot, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Robert Carradine, June Lockhart, and Bud Cort.
