HOLLYWOOD -- When Billy Crystal hosts the Academy Awards for the eighth time this Nov. 29 (CTV/ABC), he'll have his lucky charm in his pocket: his childhood toothbrush. "I've kept it for years," Crystal told about a dozen reporters swarming him after yesterday's ABC session for the upcoming 76th Annual Academy Awards.

Thoughtful

Crystal, who was warm and thoughtful throughout the session, said that when he was a kid growing up in New York, he'd go into the bathroom, grab the toothbrush like it was a microphone, "and thank the little people, of which I was one at the time," he said.

"I didn't think about it until I hosted the show for the first time (which was in 1990). When I was brushing my teeth and getting dressed I put it in my pocket."

He's had it with him at the Awards ever since.

Said Crystal, "It just reminds me of where I came from."

This will be the first time Crystal has hosted the Oscars in three years. "It just felt like it was time," he said.

He's set a high standard over the years and wants to maintain it. "My problem is if it's slightly off, just slightly, I'll get creamed in the papers," he said after the session. "My head goes on a tee when I do this show."

He admitted that he got a bit "itchy" to host again after watching Steve Martin emcee last year's 75th anniversary broadcast. The war in Iraq thrust the show into "extraordinary times," and Crystal "wanted that extra pressure."

He thought Martin did a magnificent job. "It was a great accomplishment to pull off laughs at that time."

Crystal says he's been training for the job for weeks already. "It's an endurance race," he said. "If my body doesn't feel right I don't feel good on stage."

He joked that he had 104 writers backstage but really there are only two. A favourite moment was when 100-year-old Hal Roach, the beloved Laurel & Hardy producer, was introduced in the auditorium and stood up and rambled on without a mike for what seemed like several minutes. The home audience couldn't hear a word.

Crystal's famous comeback was, "It seems appropriate that he got his start in silent films."

With the Awards airing a month earlier this year, the prep time has been shortened as well. Crystal says he's been working on the show since September, trying to bank jokes on the likely Oscar contenders.

"We write thousands of jokes going in," he says. "It's like creating a football playbook with options."

Naturally, he hopes his pal Jack Nicholson, who's always grinning in the first row, gets a nomination for Something's Gotta Give. "He has been like my partner on several of the shows," said Crystal.

Other films Crystal loved this year include Bill Murray's Lost In Translation, Whale Rider and Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King.

The show will pause to honour the inordinate number of Hollywood icons who have passed away in the past year, including frequent Oscar host Bob Hope, Katharine Hepburn and Gregory Peck.

Crystal wouldn't confirm he was planning another Hollywood montage where he works himself into clips from the nominated films. The first time he did that, he got a standing ovation before he even took the stage.

"It was most moving and gratifying thing that ever happened to me in my career," he said.

"My mother died two years ago and it was the only time she ever saw me in person host the awards. I remember looking at her from the stage sitting next to my wife and my kids. Nothing will ever top that moment.

"You start performing for your parents when you're a kid. Now here you are on the stage of the world and she's in the audience, so that was the greatest thrill of my life."


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