Oscars go green

MoviesCity native Suzy Amis Cameron and her husband try to save the world, one dress and film at a time

Suzy Amis Cameron’s husband may be crowned “king of the world” for a second time on Oscar night, and for that glittering occasion, the Oklahoma City native will make a very special fashion statement when she walks the red carpet on “Avatar” director  James Cameron’s arm.

Of course, every woman attending the 82nd annual Academy Award ceremonies March 7 will be dressed to the utmost nines, as always, in original creations from the most exclusive glad rag makers in the world, while Amis Cameron will be wearing a number made out of sustainable, environmentally friendly materials and designed by Jillian Granz.

And right now, fashionistas are going, What? Who?

“To give you a little bit of background, I actually started a school with my sister Rebecca Amis out here in California,Amis Cameron said in a recent phone interview from Malibu.

“And it’s an environmental school with a very large component of global citizenry, and it’s a nonprofit, so we’re always looking at ways to raise money. And one of the ideas that we came up with last year was creating a dress contest.

The “Red Carpet Green Dress” competition was open to entrants from all around the world, affording aspiring garment stylists the opportunity to design an environmentally conscious red-carpet dress and have it showcased in front of millions during filmdom’s most prestigious event.

“We had (entries) from all over the globe,” she said. “Italy andAustralia and Spain, South America; they just came flooding in.”

As the sole judge of the contest, Amis Cameron settled on a design by Granz, an apparel and textile design senior at Michigan State University. Granz has been brought toÂLos Angeles to consult with Deborah Scott, who won an Academy Award for the costume designs seen in “Titanic,” Camerons previous blockbuster, which inspired him to proclaim himself “the king of the world” (a quote from Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the film) at the 1998 Oscar ceremonies after collecting a record-tying 11 statuettes (1959’s “Ben-Hur” and 2003’s “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” each won 11, too).

“I have had my first fitting for it just to get my exact measurements, and I’ll be going back in a couple of days to have a muslin fitting,” Amis Cameron said. “So we’re in the thick of it. The thing that we’re doing right now is sourcing the fabric.”

She declined to describe the dress before its unveiling at the annual Global Green pre-Oscar party, which she’ll co-host with her husband four days before the Oscar ceremonies.

“It looks like I’m probably going to be wearing the dress twice, which is a definite fashion faux pas, but it is also, I think, the epitome of recycling,” she said.

Amis Cameron should know about fashion propriety. During her junior year at Heritage Hall High School in Oklahoma City, the slender blonde took modeling lessons from Patty Harrison-Gers and started doing local fashion shows to help pay for her passion ” English-style horseback riding. This led to a job with the Eileen Ford modeling agency in New York, where her exquisitely chiseled, patrician features made her an instant success.

She managed to find the time to graduate from Heritage Hall before modeling led to an acting career and a string of films that included the Steven Spielberg-produced “Fandango” (shot in Texas and Oklahoma in 1984, with Kevin Costner), “Rocket Gibraltar“(1988, with Burt Lancaster), “Rich in Love” (1993, with Albert Finney), “Blown Away” (1994, with Jeff Bridges), “The Usual Suspects” (1995) and “Titanic” (1997), where she met Cameron.

“I couldn”t be more proud,” she said of Cameron”s producing, directing and editing nominations for “Avatar.” “He’s an amazing man.”

And it doesn”t bother her a bit that her husband is competing with his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, in the best picture and best director categories for her work on “The Hurt Locker.” In fact, they’re all good friends.

Amis Cameron said it was Cameron who recommended the script for “The Hurt Locker” to Bigelow.

“And we were actually at the premiere,” Amis Cameron said. “I”m a huge fan of Kathryn. I think that not only is she an incredibly talented filmmaker, but she’s an incredible woman. She had done some amazing things in her life, being a woman, which I really, really admire. She’s been over to the house many times, met the children. We’re all very close. But I think more than anything, in this particular moment, she is an incredible role model for every little girl in America, and I really admire her for that.”

As for her own career in film, Amis Cameron said she made a conscious decision to give it up a decade ago. Her last film was the action-thriller “Judgment Day” (1999) with Ice-T and Mario Van Peebles.

“Jim and I had a discussion about it when we first got together, and I told him that I felt that if our relationship was going to hold strong that one of us needed to quit working, and it wasn’t going to be him. And, oh, by the way, I wanted to have a bunch of kids.

She’s had three with him so far.

But Amis Cameron had other ambitions in mind, such as starting the MUSE elementary school in Topanga, and dedicating it to empowering children to realize the full potential of their lives through academics, personal responsibility, compassionate relations, global consciousness and environmental awareness.

The school welcomes children from across the socioeconomic spectrum, offering education through the fifth grade. The school’s scholarship fund provides financial aid to about 50 percent of its students.

Through MUSE Global, the institution has partnerships and shares projects with the Mana Tamariki school in New Zealand and the Good Morning School on the Thai-Burma border. The latter school educates children of migrant workers who have escaped genocide in Burma, officially known as Myanmar.

“We actually support that school a hundred percent, and all of the children who go to it,” Amis Cameron said. “We share curriculum with those schools. We connect these children through e-mail and video, and they’re able to do projects together and grow together.

“And my long-term dream is that these children will never have to use the word “tolerance” or “diversity” in their life. It will just be a reference point that those are their friends. They just happen to be from another country.”

The entry fees from the “Red Carpet Green Dress” competition will do a little bit to help achieve the goals of MUSE, which strongly resemble the themes of peace and environmental responsibility found in James Cameron’s science-fiction epic.

“It’s interesting, because the same month that he decided to go forward with “Avatar” was the same month that I decided to start MUSE with Rebecca,” Amis Cameron said. “And so we were both out there trying to change the world, save the world at the same time.”

thanks to NewsOK: Oscars go green by GENE TRIPLETT

Photo: James Cameron, Oscar-nominated director of the film “Avatar”, poses with his wife Suzy Amis during their arrival at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival for Cameron to receive the festival’s Modern Master Award in Santa Barbara, Calif., Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010. (AP Photo/Michael A. Mariant)