The story of the Golden Globes is funnier than any movie they could nominate for Best Comedy.
Today, Page Six’s Tatiana Siegel reports that the old Hollywood Foreign Press Association — which now calls itself the Golden Globe (no ‘s’) Foundation, fired its CEO Gregory Goeckner.
You can think of this group as the dissidents, who are not in power anyway. And Goeckner was already gone, so I don’t know how they fired him.
On top of that Siegel worked for decades for Penske Media, which owns the actual Golden Globes with Todd Boehly’s Eldridge Industries.
Penske and Boehly bought the Globes from the highly corrupt, racist Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which everyone thought then disbanded. Penske and Boehly took a few of the old members, added hundreds more voters, and reinvented the Globes with a TV show from Dick Clark Productions, which the media company also owns.
But the HFPA never went away. They took their 501c3, dropped the ‘s’ in Golden Globes, and kept going like a shadow organization. I told you a couple of months ago that these old veterans of free trips, gifts, dinners, and swag filed suit against Penske saying they didn’t understand the terms of their sale.
Of course, the old HFPA can stamp their feet and “fire” whomever they like, but they have no TV show. And that’s what this is all about. Penske owns the Globes name, and Dick Clark Productions. They have the deal with CBS for a show in January. Those awards will be voted on by their own people. The HFPA, or whatever it calls itself, has no standing. Penske will prevail.
But is all very funny. Really, the whole thing should disappear. It’s devolved into chaos.
As for the Golden Globe Foundation: its most recent tax filing ends June 30, 2024. They claim to have $119 million in net assets, with $70 million in revenue for that year. That’s a lot of money for “movie critics.” That label is a joke in itself. The listed president on the tax form is Henry Arnaud, a cheese ball who posts a lot of pictures of himself with celebrities on Instagram and gave himself the nickname “Mr. Hollywood” there and on YouTube. The pictures are evidently proof of his existence.
You can’t blame Arnaud. He’s just the latest iteration of decades of mad dictators who’ve made their names on the backs of actual achievers in Hollywood. Their only accomplishments have been feeding off the work of others, bad or good, pretending they hold sway in a crumbling kingdom.
According to the tax filing, Arnaud was paying himself $115,010. Total salaries of the main players came to $400,000. The group gave grants totaling $5,000. Total expenses (apart from salaries) were over $500,000 — most of it spent on travel. Why is anyone still giving them money? It’s a headscratcher.
How will this all end? Penske and Dick Clark Productions will go on with their Golden Globes show on CBS. The HFPA lawsuit will be snuffed out. But getting to that point will be an adventure.
Oh, and more thing: the new Golden Globes has been looking high and low for voters — not members, just voters. They made a big push this past spring to lure critics from the Critics Choice Association, whose own TV show will be broadcast live a week before the Globes and has far more substance. (I can say that because I’m a member!)
