By Maria Caspani
(Reuters) – A star-studded, glamour-packed Oscars red carpet marked the full return of Hollywood’s big night out at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre on Sunday after the seismic changes brought by COVID-19.
After a scaled-down ceremony at a train station last year, the Oscars have returned to their traditional venue, which will be filled to about three-quarters capacity with 2,500 guests, allowing for some social distancing.
Among the first celebrities to step onto the red carpet was Hollywood veteran Jamie Lee Curtis in a neck-high, glittery Stella McCartney gown.
Curtis announced that during the ceremony she will present a special tribute to late TV and movie icon Betty White, who passed away on Dec. 31, a couple of weeks shy of her 100th birthday.
“I am wearing Stella McCartney, who’s an animal rights activist, as Betty White was,” Curtis told ABC. “It felt like a perfect way to walk the walk and talk the talk.”
Saniyya Sidney, the young actress who portrayed tennis superstar Venus Williams in the Oscar-nominated biopic “King Richard,” stunned in an Armani Prive gown embroidered with floral motifs.
“We talked about boyfriends, old boyfriends,” she told cable channel E! about her interactions with tennis great Williams. “We talked about school and how growing up in Compton was like.”
After last year’s smaller-than-usual affair at Los Angeles’ Union Station due to the pandemic, Sunday’s unbridled Oscars glamour brought lots of pastel colors punctuated by bright splashes of gold.
Jessica Chastain, a contender for the best actress statuette for her portrayal of American evangelist Tammy Faye, dazzled the carpet crowd in a two-toned Gucci dress, while actress Lupita Nyong’o’s sparkling golden dress also turned heads.
(Reporting by Maria Caspani; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
