Sports and Hollywood Work for the ESPYs

The movie business began in New York shortly after the turn of the 20th century, but within 10 years filmmakers realized that Southern California had the climate and the natural scenery suited to making movies.

ESPN began its ESPY Awards show in New York in 1993, and now, after a stopover in Las Vegas, the king of sports television has moved its signature event to a climate and an area more to its liking.

The 10th ESPY Awards show will be held tonight at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre, the new home of the Academy Awards show.

ESPN believes that Hollywood is the perfect site for a show that it has promoted as a marriage between sports and entertainment.

“Since sports and entertainment have always blended so nicely, Hollywood is a very fitting site,” said ESPN president George Bodenheimer.

The marriage between sports and Hollywood goes back to the 1920s, when swimmer Johnny Weissmuller parlayed Olympic gold into a starring role as Tarzan.

Since then, the cross-over has been nonstop. Sports stars have become actors, and while actors have not become sports stars, many are sports fans.

Sports movies are a big part of Hollywood, and unlike Westerns, they have endured the test of time.

“Knute Rockne--All American” was made in 1940. “The Babe Ruth Story” starring William Bendix was made in 1948 and remade with John Goodman in 1991.

“Bull Durham,” “The Natural,” and “Field of Dreams” are baseball classics.

“Rocky” and “Chariots of Fire” won Academy Awards as pictures of the year.

The evidence is everywhere.

The man who now runs the Dodgers, Bob Daly, used to be the head of a movie studio.

It has become commonplace for actors to attend ballgames. Jack Nicholson, Penny Marshall, Andy Garcia and Denzel Washington are among the regulars at Laker games. James Garner, because of his friendship with the team orthopedist, used to stroll the Coliseum sideline when the Raiders played there. Doris Day was a huge Dodger fan.

So it’s understandable that the list of entertainment celebrities attending tonight’s show is almost as long as the list of sports celebrities.

The host for a second consecutive year is actor Samuel L. Jackson.

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The winners of the annual Arthur Ashe Courage Award were announced Tuesday. They are Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett and Jeremy Glick, four passengers who lost their lives Sept. 11 on United Flight 93. They were involved in forcing the plane to crash in a Pennsylvania field rather than its intended target, and all four were involved in sports.

Accepting the award will be three of the widows and one mother. There will also be a video tribute narrated by Tom Hanks.

Today would have been Ashe’s 59th birthday.