I think it was unfair and ungracious of Oscar producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman not to include Farrah Fawcett in last night’s death-tribute reel. Fawcett began on the tube, of course, but she was an industry-community person as much as anyone else, and she gave highly respected performances in at least two features — Extremities and Alan Pakula‘s See You In The Morning. And let’s not forget her fine work in The Burning Bed, a powerful made-for-TV flick.

I didn’t see Ron Silver in last night’s tribute either, although I may have missed him. Was Edward Woodward included? I know Bea Arthur wasn’t, and that they also blew off Marilyn Chambers, basically for blowing too many guys in too many porn films. Incuding her would have established an unwelcome precedent, I realize, but Chambers was as famous and influential a performer in the early 1970s as Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Cybil Shepard or Barbra Streisand were in their realms. She wasn’t a real “actress”, of course, but Average Joes and Janes knew her quite well. She was as iconic in her own way as Muhammud Ali.