Oscar Night

It is Oscar Night and Hollywood is gearing up for its most festive occasion. I want to extend my congratulations to Jason Reitman, the Director of Juno, for his Best Director nomination. I am proud to say that Jason Reitman is a fellow Alumnus of the Harvard-Westlake School.

Harvard and Yale are credited for producing more Presidents of the United States, than any other universities. The University of Southern California is credited for having more of their athletes as Olympians than any other university in the country.

It is fair to say that Harvard-Westlake has produced more Oscar winners than any other secondary school in the world. As far back as Douglas Fairbanks,Jr., Harvard-Westlake alums have been Oscar winners. Fairbanks, himself, was a co founder of United Artists.

Darryl Zanuck, Douglas Fairbanks, Charleton Heston, Kirk Douglas, Gregory Peck and even President Ronald Reagan are members of the Harvard-Westlake family, as either an alumnus or father of one of the boys that attended the school.

Martin shafer, the founder, Chairman and CEO of Castle Rock Entertainment was on the tennis team with me when we won two Championships. Douglas Wick, former Co-Chair of Sony Entertainment Pictures was in my class. Those two men, alone, are credited with at least 20 Oscars.

Congratulations to Jason Reitman for continuing the Harvard-Westlake tradition.