Washington, Berry take top Oscars for acting

LOS ANGELES -- Denzel Washington was named best actor for his role as a crooked cop in "Training Day" while Halle Berry became the first black actress to earn an Academy Award in a lead role, winning Sunday for her portrayal of a death-row widow involved with her husband's executioner in "Monster's Ball."

She joined Sidney Poitier, who received an honorary career Oscar on Sunday, as the second black ever to win in a lead-acting category.

The awards ceremony was still going on as of press time with Oscars for best picture and best director yet to be awarded.

Supporting roles

Stand-by-your-spouse roles earned Academy Awards for supporting performers Jim Broadbent of "Iris" and Jennifer Connelly of "A Beautiful Mind" on Sunday.

Broadbent took the supporting-actor Oscar for his role as the befuddled but doting husband of Alzheimer's-afflicted writer Iris Murdoch, and Connelly won the supporting-actress honor as the steadfast wife of delusional math genius John Nash.

"By some beautiful twist of fate I've landed in this vocation that demands that I feel and helps me to learn," said Connelly, who played the mathematician's wife, Alicia. "I believe in love, that there's nothing more important. Alicia Nash is a true champion of love, and so thank you to her for her example."

Broadbent thanked Murdoch's husband, John Bayley, "who allowed us to plunder and I'm sure misrepresent his life with Iris."

"A Beautiful Mind" also earned the adapted-screenplay award for Akiva Goldsman.

"I am terrified," Goldsman told the audience, after a long, falsetto laugh. "I would like to thank John and Alicia Nash for their extraordinary courage and for entrusting us with their lives."

Julian Fellowes took the original-screenplay honor for "Gosford Park," directed by Robert Altman.

"My thanks start with the great Robert Altman, who's given me the biggest break in movies since Lana Turner walked into Schwab's," Fellowes said.

"Shrek," the hip twist on cartoon fairy tales that featured the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz, won the first-ever Oscar for animated feature film.

"Thank you, members of the academy for inviting us to the party by creating this animated category to begin with," said Aron Warner, producer of the computer-animated film.

After 15 Oscar losses over the years for song or score, Randy Newman finally won for best song, "If I Didn't Have You," from "Monsters, Inc."

"I don't want your pity," Newman cracked. "I want to thank first of all the music branch for giving me so many chances to be humiliated over the years."

"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," a best-picture contender that led the field with 13 nominations, also led early on with four awards. The adaptation of part one of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epic, "Fellowship of the Ring," won best score for Howard Shore and the cinematography, visual effects and makeup Oscars.

"It was a tremendously rewarding experience to translate the words of Tolkien into music," Shore said.

The other best-picture nominees were "A Beautiful Mind," "Gosford Park," "In the Bedroom" and "Moulin Rouge."

Other early awards went to "Black Hawk Down" for film editing and sound, "Pearl Harbor" for sound editing and "Moulin Rouge" for costume design and art direction, two Oscars shared by Catherine Martin, wife of "Moulin Rouge" director Baz Luhrmann, who was snubbed for a best-directing nomination.

"It was your vision. This is your Oscar, Baz," Martin said to her husband as she accepted the costume-design award.

The surprise foreign film award winner was Bosnia's "No Man's Land," writer-director Danis Tanovic's satiric story of a Bosnian soldier and a Serbian soldier who are stuck together in a trench. France's "Amelie," which had five nominations, was expected to win.

Poitier accepts honors

Accepting an honorary Academy Award for career achievement was Sidney Poitier, the only black ever to win a lead-acting Oscar, for 1963's "Lilies of the Field."

"I arrived in Hollywood at the age of 22 at a time that was different than today's," Poitier said. "A time in which the odds against me stranding here tonight 53 years later would not have fallen in my favor. Back then no route had been established for where I was hoping to go....

"Yet here I am this evening, at the end of a journey that in 1949 would have been considered almost impossible and in fact would never have been set in motion were it not for a number of courageous, unselfish choices made by handful of visionary filmmakers, directors, writers and producers."

Opening the show, Tom Cruise took a moment to mention the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying he talked with a friend about whether his work as an actor was important in light of the tragedy.

"What about a night like tonight? Should we celebrate the joy and magic movies bring? Dare I say it? More than ever," Cruise said, drawing enthusiastic applause. "A small scene, a gesture, even a glance between characters can cross lines, break through barriers, melt prejudice or just plain make us laugh."

Viewers were treated to a standup routine by past Oscar winner Woody Allen, who introduced a tribute to films shot in New York City as a way to mark the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

When the academy called to invite him, Allen joked he thought officials wanted his Oscars back. "I panicked because the pawnshop has been out of business for ages. I had no way of retrieving anything," Allen said.

The tribute was made by filmmaker Nora Ephron. It began with the opening of Allen's "Manhattan" and included clips from "Taxi Driver," "Working Girl," "Tootsie," "The French Connection," "The Apartment," "On the Waterfront" and other films.

Later, in introducing the annual retrospective of the Hollywood notables who died in the past year, Kevin Spacey asked everyone to rise for a moment of silence "for every single American hero who gave his or her life on Sept. 11."

Oscar host Whoopi Goldberg made a grand entrance from the ceiling, lowered on a trapeze to the theater floor in a spoof of Nicole Kidman's first appearance in best-picture nominee "Moulin Rouge."

Dressed in a gaudy, glittering outfit, Goldberg told the audience, "I am the original sexy beast," referring to "Sexy Beast," the film that earned Ben Kingsley a supporting-actor nomination.

The Oscars returned to Hollywood for the first time since 1960. The new site for the 74th awards was the recently opened Kodak Theatre, just across Hollywood Boulevard from the hotel where the first Oscars were presented in 1929.