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 Russell Crowe and Julia Roberts win top awards in a year when Oscar statues are spread evenly among nominees Monday, March 26, 2001 By Barbara Vancheri and Ron Weiskind, Post-Gazette Staff Writers
LOS ANGELES -- To paraphrase Russell Crowe's Roman general, what Hollywood did last night will echo in Oscar eternity.
It named "Gladiator," Ridley Scott's sandals and swords epic, as Best Picture at the 73rd annual Academy Awards. The movie was a mix of old and new Hollywood: costumes sparkling with gold thread and hand-embroidered footwear shared the screen with a rebuilt Roman Empire, including a coliseum constructed by man and computer.
"Gladiator" entered last night's ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium with a dozen nominations, more than any other picture. In addition to capturing the top prize, it won Best Actor for Australian Crowe. It also earned golden statuettes for sound, costumes and visual effects.
Academy Award winners previously announced:
Other acting honors went to: Julia Roberts, Benicio Del Toro and Marcia Gay Harden. And while there was no award for timeliness, Steve Martin presided over a Hollywood miracle: The show came in at just under 3 1/2 hours, which meant East Coast viewers won't need triple espressos to keep them awake today.
"I know what you're thinking, just when you start to get into it, it's over," host Martin quipped shortly before midnight.
Steven Soderbergh, a double directing nominee, was the surprise winner for "Traffic." He said he planned to thank people connected to the movie privately but publicly wanted to thank "anyone who spends part of their day creating," be it a book, film, dance, piece of theater or music.
"I think the world would be unlivable without art," declared the bespectacled director, who spent part of his childhood in Pittsburgh, where his father was a professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
Roberts ignored the 45-second acceptance speech limit -- and no one seemed to mind one whit. "I have a television," she joked, referring to the prize being awarded to the winner with the shortest acceptance speech. She was out of the running in no time.
The Pretty Woman, who won the Best Actress Oscar for "Erin Brockovich," started her thank-yous in the conventional way. "Thank you, thank you, ever so much. I'm so happy," said Roberts, clad in a vintage black-and-white Valentino gown and flashing tears in her famous brown eyes.
Roberts said it felt like a triumph to be among the list of Best Actress nominees and then, becoming distracted, said of the award, "I can't believe this is quite pretty."
Waving off the conductor, who apparently threatened to start the music and the clock watchers ("Turn that clock off, it's making me nervous"), she acknowledged a long list of people connected to the picture and to her life. Among them: supporting actor nominee Albert Finney, her sister and mother, boyfriend Benjamin Bratt and director Soderbergh. "You truly made me want to be the best actor I never knew I could be or aspire to."
And then, sounding not unlike a taller, younger Sally Field, she said, "I love the world. I'm so happy. Thank you."
At age 33, Roberts is the most bankable actress in Hollywood, the one female star who can open a picture on the strength of her name alone -- and the widest, brightest smile in the business. "Erin Brockovich" proved the point once more, grossing more than $125 million at the box office and earning Roberts her third Oscar nomination.
Roberts emphasized her cleavage, her resilience and her toughness as a penniless divorced mother living in a trailer who bulldozes her way into a menial job with a law firm and ends up winning a huge damage award against a powerful public utility.
Crowe, known for his roguish smile, womanizing ways and gladiator's body, turned surprisingly eloquent and humble last night when he was named Best Actor.
Crowe appeared stunned when actress Hilary Swank called his name. He accepted hugs, kisses and a wave of warm applause that accompanied his short trip to the podium. Crowe thanked his family, including his mum and dad -- "I just don't thank them enough, I suppose" -- his late uncle and his fellow cast members, including an obviously thrilled Joaquin Phoenix, who shared the row and jokes all night with Crowe.
"Really folks, you know, I owe this to one bloke and his name is Ridley Scott," the director of "Gladiator." In turning introspective, Crowe said of winning an Academy Award: "If you grow up ... in the suburbs of anywhere, a dream like this seems kind of vaguely ludicrous and completely unattainable."
But this moment "is directly connected to those childhood imaginings. And for anybody who's on the down side of advantage, and relying purely on courage, it's possible."
Crowe had been on Oscar's fabled red carpet before this, but the past year had rocketed him into People, the National Enquirer and FBI advisories. His personal life -- a messy affair and breakup with Meg Ryan and a kidnapping threat -- became public fodder.
But the native New Zealander has spent the past half-dozen years quietly assembling a diverse and distinguished resume, from his role as vice cop Bud White in "L.A. Confidential" to his Oscar-nominated turn as a tobacco executive turned whistleblower in "The Insider."
Many American moviegoers discovered him in "Gladiator," where he played Roman General Maximus, a man who commands respect on the battlefield but dreams only of the comforts of home. When his family is murdered, he is forced into slavery and trained as a gladiator. It was a star turn.
Del Toro, who plays an honest Mexican cop in "Traffic," a movie that presents the war on drugs as virtually unwinnable, won for Best Supporting Actor.
Not known for especially eloquent acceptance speeches, he did better than usual by reeling off a list of people he wanted to thank. He started with director Soderbergh and ended by dedicating the statuette to two of the cities that had doubled as locations: Nogales, Mexico, and Nogales, Ariz.
"I was lucky," Del Toro said backstage. "I think the train came to a stop when I was there with my suitcase and I got lucky."
Asked how it felt to hold an 8 1/2 pound Academy Award, he replied, "It feels really good, my friend. My plans are, like, you know, tour with it and show it to my dad" and to other members of his family. "It's pretty exciting for them. It's great when you have people to enjoy it with."
But Del Toro said he has to keep things in perspective.
"I won. I get to scream and jump a little bit. But, besides that, I've got to go to work tomorrow. And some time I have to get on a plane and go back to Portland," where he is shooting a William Friedkin film tentatively titled "The Hunted." "I've got to learn my lines."
When questioned about becoming a heartthrob and sex symbol, the black-haired actor with the bedroom eyes said, "You tell me. How do I look? It's part of the game. I'm an actor. That's what I do."
But, he continued, speaking of the award, "There's a lot of tradition in this. ... I'm ecstatic."
Asked about the messages and meanings of "Traffic," he said, "We really need to educate kids early in school -- first grade. We need to educate parents.... Education is the ticket."
He also was glad that he got to play a Mexican character who was a hero. "There are people on the other side of the border honestly trying to do the right thing. That's what made the character, more than I did."
A 34-year-old native of Puerto Rico, Del Toro came to the United States at age 13 to attend Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania. Its graduates include another tall actor with a halting speech pattern: Jimmy Stewart, class of 1928.
Although the buzz had been with Del Toro, the first big award of the night was a stunner.
The Best Supporting Actress honor went to "Pollock" star and dark horse Marcia Gay Harden, who plays artist Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock's wife. Most oddsmakers had expected the gold would be handed to Goldie Hawn's daughter, Kate Hudson, who had glowed on screen as a groupie in "Almost Famous."
The 41-year-old Harden, whose role actually was closer to a leading actress, thanked director and co-star Ed Harris for "inviting me to share your passion." Harden called Harris a brave director and even greater actor and thanked her parents for helping her to soldier through tough situations and to do it with grace.
The wife of documentary filmmaker Thaddaeus Scheel and mother of a 2-year-old daughter, the new Oscar winner previously worked with Harris in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of "Simpatico."
"I'm a New York theater actress, and now I'm here -- with Oscar," Harden told reporters back stage. When her name was announced, Harden said, "I was crushed in Ed Harris' hug for about a minute, it felt like. And all I could think of was, 'Oh my gosh, I feel so thrilled and so proud.'
"I think it means more to me personally than it does in terms of my career," she said, noting that while some winners and nominees go on to greater things, others have seen their careers wane.
"Personally, it's a victory. As an actress who came up in New York City in the theater waiting tables and all of the above, I never dreamt of this." She had vowed that if she ever did win an Oscar, she would thank all the waiters and waitresses who covered her shifts while she went to auditions, but the tight limits on acceptance speeches didn't allow her to do so.
She said Harris, as a director who is also an actor, enabled her to "access things that usually take a lot of time to get to. ... It was thrilling because he's tough, because he's raw and he would ask me to go to that place with him."
Her victory for a performance in such a small-budget and little-seen film, and Harris' perserverance in taking 10 years to get it made, proves "anybody can do anything they want if they simply really, really, really, really want to do it and they're able to have the support of the people around them."
She also said, "Independent film is where a lot of women, especially women who are beyond 30 and maybe even beyond 40, really find roles where they can transform."
The writing honors went to Stephen Gaghan for "Traffic" and Cameron Crowe for "Almost Famous."
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" as expected, took the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Director Ang Lee, who had reinvented the martial-arts genre, thanked his "enormously talented cast and crew," along with studio executives, friends and family in Taiwan and the people of China.
As always, there was a new show set -- a gigantic louvered cove flanked by stainless-steel sculpture incorporating the Oscar profile -- but this year, there was a new host, too. Martin took over for recent favorite Billy Crystal, who begged off because of movie commitments.
He tweaked the nominees -- Crowe's reputation as a womanizer, Charlton Heston's assumption he was in "Gladiator," Roberts' $20 million salary -- and their celebrity, which brings such perks as free designer duds. "Hosting the Oscars is like making love to a beautiful woman. It's something I only get to do when Billy Crystal is out of town," he quipped, to warm applause.
The show's opening included a greeting from the International Space Station Alpha Destiny module. But the message from outerspace wasn't the only high-tech touch of the night. Bob Dylan, who sang "Things Have Changed" from "Wonder Boys" via satellite from Sydney, Australia. Immediately afterward, Dylan learned he won the Oscar for Best Song. "Oh, good God, this is amazing," he said, thanking director Curtis Hanson, who made the offbeat comedy in Pittsburgh.
Although clad in formalwear, Dylan was harshly lit and looked a bit like a scruffy outlaw -- which was nothing compared to the swan dress wrapped around singer Bjork. In one of his best lines of the night, host Martin said he was going to wear his swan outfit, but it was so last year.
In addition to the competitive categories, screenwriter-producer-director Ernest Lehman was given an honorary Academy Award "in appreciation of a body of varied and enduring work."
Another honorary Oscar went to cinematographer and director Jack Cardiff. "His work is pure, visionary and timeless. He has given us some of the most enduring images in motion picture history," Academy President Robert Rehme said. Cardiff is an Englishman who has lent his eye and eloquent touch to such films as "Black Narcissus," "War and Peace" and "The African Queen."
Cardiff received a standing ovation, as did Dino De Laurentiis, who expressed his gratitude to "six beautiful women" including his apparently much younger wife sitting in the audience and daughters.
De Laurentiis was given the Irving G. Thalberg Award, an honor established in 1937 and awarded that year to Darryl Zanuck. It is awarded to "creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production."
Angelenos have complained about the weather being cool this week, although Pittsburghers certainly would remind them that it's all relative. Sure enough, the thermometer didn't make it to 70 yesterday but sunny skies prevailed by the time the stars came out onto the red carpet in front of the Shrine Auditorium.
They started showing up early -- some of the major nominees were waving to bleacher fans as much as two hours before showtime. The fans responded with periodic bouts of screaming as certain performers came into view. Limousines were lined up five deep on Jefferson Street alongside the auditorium.
Best Actress nominee Laura Linney, who has been filming "The Mothman Prophecies" in Pittsburgh, was resplendent in a red gown with criss-cross straps across the bare back and her blond hair upswept. At one point, she and fellow nominee Ellen Burstyn, looking nothing like her diet-pill addict in "Requiem for a Dream," shared a hug.
The scaffolding outside the Shrine held up, too. There was no evidence of the accident Thursday that injured several workmen and left debris adjacent to the arrivals area.
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Best Picture: "Gladiator"
