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Russell
Crowe wins best actor Oscar
LOS ANGELES: A year after losing a first-time Oscar
bid for his powerful 
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| EVERYTHING
TO CROW ABOUT: Crowe won the Oscar for his sensitive
portrayal of a fallen Roman general in Gladiator.
(Reuter) |
performance
in The Insider, New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe
came back on Sunday to win the Academy Award for best
actor in the blockbuster Roman epic Gladiator.
Crowe, 36, whose blend of brooding strength and sensitivity
has made him one of Hollywood's hottest leading men,
claimed the Oscar crown for starring as a fallen Roman
general who is sold into slavery and fights to avenge
the deaths of his family.
A
seemingly stunned Crowe thanked his parents, fellow
cast members and, most of all, director Ridley Scott.
"Really
folks, I owe this to one bloke, and his name is Ridley
Scott," Crowe said of the British-born filmmaker,
adding that while growing up, "a dream like this
seems kind of vaguely ludicrous and completely unobtainable."
"But
this moment is directly connected to those childhood
imaginings. And for anybody who's on the downside of
advantage, and relying purely on courage, it's possible,"
he said.
Crowe's
Oscar triumph punctuates a frenzied year in which the
36-year-old actor seldom strayed far from the spotlight.
In
addition to starring in Gladiator, one of last year's
top-grossing films, Crowe pursued a short-lived but
highly publicised romance with actress Meg Ryan, the
co-star of his latest film, Proof of Life. Reports of
their affair made headlines at about the time the film,
in which he played a professional kidnapping-ransom
negotiator, was released last year.
More
recently came news that the FBI was investigating a
real-life kidnapping threat against Crowe and had even
provided security for him at the Golden Globe awards
in January.
Sunday's
victory marks a sweet reversal of Oscar fortunes for
Crowe. He garnered his first nomination last year for
playing tobacco industry whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand
in The Insider but lost the best-actor race to Kevin
Spacey as part of the American Beauty juggernaut.
Crowe's
Academy Award victory climaxes a meteoric rise to international
fame ignited by his 1997 performance as quick-tempered
police detective Bud White in Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential.
Despite
an off-screen reputation as a sometimes combative hothead,
the actor's rugged good looks, low-key intensity and
cinematic range have evoked comparisons to the likes
of Clark Gable, Robert Mitchum and Marlon Brando.
The
son of movie set caterers, Crowe was born in Wellington,
New Zealand, but grew up in Australia and made his acting
debut at age six in an episode of the Australian television
series Spyforce.
After
winning accolades for a series of stage and movie roles
Down Under, including his portrayal of a vicious skinhead
in the controversial 1992 film Romper Stomper, Crowe
made his American screen debut as a gunslinger-turned-preacher
in the 1995 western The Quick and the Dead, starring
Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman.
That
film led to his role as the villainous cyberkiller Sid
6.7 opposite Denzel Washington in Virtuosity before
he was cast in L.A. Confidential. In 1999, he starred
as a hockey player in the little-seen Mystery, Alaska,
before winning critical acclaim, and back-to-back Oscar
nominations for his performances in The Insider and
Gladiator.
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