Many people left the 78th Academy Awards with Oscars, but Lauren Bacall was probably the only one who left with a penguin.

The actress happened to be standing backstage right, when March of the Penguins won documentary feature. As the film-makers exited the stage, they were so thrilled to encounter Bacall, they handed her one of the stuffed penguins they had brought on stage. "It's very sweet," she said. "But I don't know exactly what I should do with it."

The idea of Hollywood as a high-wattage social club is never clearer than in the shadows of backstage right. Surrounded by tuxedoed stagehands, bumping shoulders as they sidestep flying pieces of scenery, stars greet one another as if they were long-lost friends. And for these three hours, there's an "Ohmigod, you look so beautiful" camaraderie that's contagious.

Here early winners George Clooney and Rachel Weisz passed, each looking dazed by what must have been a sudden onslaught of adrenaline - hadn't they just been on the red carpet a few minutes ago?

In the dim blue glimmer of a large TV screen, Ben Stiller in his green unitard, flirted deadpan with the trophy models. Nearby shelves of Oscars gleamed, each polished by a man with white cotton gloves.

Jennifer Lopez waited patiently, and Salma Hayek, as Kathleen "Bird" York, nominated for best song, practised in short, soft, gorgeous trills. Hustle & Flow's Terrence Howard debated whether he should wear his glasses. Violinist Itzhak Perlman, preparing to perform the best score nominees, hoisted himself with the aid of crutches from his mobile chair to the seat made ready for him on a sliding platform.

In the greenroom, the ratio of celebrities to cubic centimetres of oxygen was so high that non-famous people found it difficult to breathe - though maybe it was just the lilies.

Director Robert Altman, who received an honorary Oscar, held court with his wife on a pale couch. Naomi Watts, Nicole Kidman and Dustin Hoffman all bent their heads over him to pay tribute. John Travolta chatted with Clooney, then with Tom Hanks, while Watts and Kidman tested the chocolates.

Hoffman kept in sight of Samuel L Jackson, asking if Jackson was returning to New York. "No," he said, "I'm going to Morocco to do a film." Hoffman said, laughing, "I don't want to jinx it, but the only time I went to Morocco we made Ishtar."

But even the glamorous calm of the greenroom was broken when It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp won best song. No award received a louder, more joyous response. Stagehands, musicians, reporters, publicists all jumped into the air when the announcement was made. And the winners themselves were shouting and crying when they came off stage -- a marked contrast to the more quiet joy of others.

"We're partying now," one said, hoisting his statue high, "Oscars will never be the same."

Hilary Swank threw a comforting arm around an emotional Philip Seymour Hoffman, who had just won best actor for Capote. He was concerned that he had left people out of his acceptance speech.

"No one forgot like I forgot," Swank said of the omission of her husband during her first Oscar speech for best actress in Boys Don't Cry. "But people will understand, they really will."

Mary McNamara,
Los Angeles Times