Oscar Nominees Luncheon: Salad with George Clooney...

It was a little tough to focus on eating my salad at the annual luncheon for Oscar nominees at the Beverly Hilton on Monday with George Clooney seated directly to my right, Casey Affleck at the next table and just yards away, Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter.

How is a person supposed to eat when all ya wanna do is rubberneck?

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, for the 27th year, celebrated all the year's Oscar nominees - from the big names like Clooney, Julie Christie and Laura Linney - to costume designers, composures, screenwriters, directors, cinematographers and more.

At last year's event, I sat next to Jennifer Hudson and figured that would be hard to top. But luck of the draw got me seated at Clooney's table, a best actor nominee for "Michael Clayton." He was the last to arrive and the last open seat was next to me. It was awfully fun to sit next to the guy who is Hollywood's unofficial "Big Man on Campus."

George, looking dashing as ever, poured wine for everyone and we had some chit-chat. We were just finishing up our salads when the nominees - more than 150 of them - were called to the stage for a group photo. It was a sight to see: Holbrook,sitting between Affleck and Ellen Page who was seated next to Julie Christie. Also in the front row were Ruby Dee, Marion Cotillard and my other seatmate, Colleen Atwood, a two-time Oscar winner for costume design and nominated this year for "Sweeney Todd." George was next to the big Oscar statue with Viggo Mortensen.

When it was done, George got into a conversation with fellow nominee Javier Barden and never returned to our table for the main course! Colleen and I joked that maybe we could sell it on E-bay. Oh well, we'll always have our salad with George.

There were some noteable absentees in the major acting categories: Daniel Day-Lewis, Cate Blanchett, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Tom Wilkinson, Tommy Lee Jones and Tilda Swinton.

Academy President Sid Ganis joked that the certificates presented to each nominee had a new line added: "Must be present to win."

Of course, we know that's not true. Katherine Hepburn won four best actress Oscars over a span of more than 50 years and never showed up to accept a single one of them.

The official part of the luncheon ended with film clips of past winners who did show up to accept their Oscars including Humphrey Bogart, Grace Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Elizabeth Taylor, Hattie McDaniel, Anthony Hopkins, Audrey Hepburn, Jodie Foster, Denzel Washington, Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando, JoAnne Woodward, Bette Davis and Spencer Tracy, among others.

It was a reminder of how special Oscar was, and is.