The Cold, Hard Truth of Working the Globes
by Joal Ryan

I am the anti-Britney Spears.

With temperatures expected to dip into the 30s tonight at the 64th Annual Golden Globes in Beverly Hills, I am wearing thermal underwear, nonthermal underwear and, at last count, three sets of sleeves.

I am still cold.

Don't ask me how Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz, Eva Longoria and virtually every other woman here are braving weather fit for polar bears in sleeveless, occasionally backless gowns. I don't know how they do it.

All I know is the ice caps are melting.

But with all due respect to Al Gore, they're not melting here. And they're not melting tonight.

6:05 p.m. ET:   I dare to step onto the red carpet.

6:06 p.m.:   Hey, it's not so bad out here...

6:07 p.m.:   ...Except when the wind blows.

6:08 p.m.:   The cast of Heroes, gathered at Today's interview booth, seems to be holding up okay. Of course, they do have superpowers.

6:10 p.m.:   There are no heaters out here. Stars are being warmed only by banks of TV lights, the occasional shawl and the general burning desire to remain really famous.

6:30 p.m.:   I just spotted a guy in a tux quaffing a complimentary champagne. Either the party's starting early, or the poor guy's trying to stave off hypothermia.

7:43 p.m.:  Making one last trip through the Beverly Hilton Hotel before the show starts...

7:44 p.m.:  ...And I catch Charlie Sheen smoking one last cigarette before the show starts...

7:45 p.m.:  ...And Naomi Watts not shivering in her backless gown...

7:46 p.m.:  ...And Hugh Grant making and/or taking a cell phone call.

7:47 p.m.:  Lobby dwellers, such as Mr. Grant, are kindly asked via PA announcement to make their way inside the awards-show ballroom, the better to have them in place for—not the ceremony, not the first award—but the "opening shot."

7:50 p.m.:  I take a cue from the still lobby-dwelling Grant and pull out my cell phone. Unlike Grant, I'm only pretending to gab, so as to make my gawking at Will Ferrell's afro not so pronounced.

7:53 p.m.:  I take another cue from the now ballroom-heading Grant and head to my own ballroom—the one without the fancy tables and flowing champagne but hopefully with the central heat.

8:12 p.m.:  The parade of winners in the (not too cold) interview room begins with Jennifer Hudson and her just-received Globe for Dreamgirls.

8:13 p.m.:  I ask Hudson if she'd be back here tonight if she'd lost on, say, America's Got Talent, rather than American Idol. "I feel like I've always been on the right path," she says, failing to fall into my snark trap. "I like to think I would have ended up right here."

8:17 p.m.:  Who is Florence Ballard, and why did Hudson dedicate her Globe to her? As girl-group scholar Hudson explains, Ballard was the singer whose ouster from the Supremes roughly inspired her Dreamgirls character. "Effie was created as Florence's voice," Hudson says, "and I felt it was my job to deliver on that end."