Friday, March 14, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
You think "Jerry Maguire" deserves the Oscar more than "The English Patient"? You like the guy from "Shine" more than the one from "Sling Blade"?
Fine. Lenny Del Genio's happy to talk about it.
Del Genio, you see, is a Las Vegas oddsmaker who handicaps the Academy Awards for Bally's hotel-casino. He's predicting -- to no great surprise -- that this year "The English Patient" and "Shine" will own the awards.
For the past 16 years, Del Genio has placed himself at the epicenter of Oscar speculation, that odd national pastime that sweeps the country at this time of year in a ritual that's become something of a rite of spring itself. And with sources deep inside the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, about 66 percent of his predictions are on the money.
"You know what the great thing about it is?" Del Genio asks, "It's that every single person has an opinion -- whether it's Ma and Pa from wherever or the most sophisticated stockbroker or attorney in the United States -- they will come in and they make it a point to come by and share their opinion. ... And they pick on me, they say, 'You never heard of so and so?'"
Del Genio, who at 54 still describes himself as a "little fat kid from Harlem," has forged a booming career with his gregarious nature and his love of handicapping -- the fine art of distilling hundreds of pieces of information and then adding a dash of hunch and intuition.
He'll handicap your sister's chances of getting married if you give him the variables. He handicaps horse races, boxing matches, Super Bowls and World Series. But it's his Oscar oddsmaking that generates some of the fiercest media interest, though he does it just for fun and publicity -- there is no legalized betting in Nevada for the Academy Awards.
So just how does he decide his picks?
Like any pro who plays the horses, he trades on information: Who's hot? Who do you like? What's the scuttlebutt? Who's getting heat?
The process starts around November. He calls his 52 sources, including actresses, actors, film critics and film scholars. He won't name names, but he says 30 are members of the Academy who vote on the awards.
"I'm a really good listener," Del Genio offers somewhat sheepishly -- he's a voluble man prone to answering single questions with 10-minute dissertations. "I prefer listening about things I don't have any idea about because that's the only way you can learn."
Then he methodically plots all the names and films on a Lotus spreadsheet. This year unfamiliar names kept coming up: Billy Bob Thornton ("Sling Blade"), Geoffrey Rush ("Shine") and Brenda Blethyn ("Secrets & Lies").
All the unknown nominees this year are a handicapper's nightmare, Del Genio says. "This is like playing poker with the guys and somebody sits down and says, 'Deuces, one-eyed jacks and queens are wild and now the best hand wins.' Well, geez, that changes all the odds across the board."
Nevertheless, after he listens to all his sources and their pitches, he carefully maps them out and then adds what he calls his "secret ingredient" -- "the ability to analyze the tones of voice and hear the subtle information," Del Genio says.
Many actors, for instance, this year had an emotional quality in their voices when singing the praises of Thornton, describing how they want to "give him a hug," says Del Genio. He figures they'll probably give him an Oscar statuette, too.
From there, he narrows his list to come up with his Oscar nominee picks, a list that usually runs about 80 percent accurate. Then, on the February day the nominees are announced, he'll call 12 of his sources and glean any last-minute buzz for his final Oscar picks in the top six categories.
An affable guy who still has the hulking dimensions of the football player he used to be at Indiana State (5-foot-10 and "224 pounds this morning"), Del Genio is acknowledged as THE Oscar handicapper in Vegas.
"Lenny's the expert," says Jim Seagrave, an executive at the Stardust hotel-casino who thought up the whole scheme when he and Del Genio worked at another hotel in 1981. Seagrave tapped Del Genio because he knew of an odd family connection to the industry. Del Genio's father, Lenny Sr., was a bit player in movies, making his debut in "The Godfather" as Sonny's bodyguard.
"It would be a hard task for anyone to challenge Lenny as the Oscar oddsmaker," says Seagrave. "He's so well liked and respected I think that everyone says 'That's Lenny's bag.'"
Del Genio's success comes "on the basis on his personality," says Seagrave. "He's a very humble person and easy to like. He's just been successful in not taking himself too seriously. It's just for fun, really, and Lenny knows that."
Del Genio used to watch 30 to 50 films a year until he realized that seeing a film didn't help him in the objective task of ranking it. So he'll tell you plainly that he didn't see that many movies last year.
But which ones?
"I see the ones that my wife wants me to see," says the Oscar oddsmaker.
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