Berry, Washington, Poitier mark historic Oscar night for black actors

LOS ANGELES -- On a night when Sidney Poitier described how different Hollywood was 53 years ago, the Academy Awards showcased how different as Halle Berry and Denzel Washington joined Poitier as the only black actors to win Oscars for lead roles.\nBerry won Sunday for her part as a death-row widow in "Monster's Ball," and Washington won for "Training Day," in which he dropped his nice-guy persona to play a flamboyantly corrupt cop.\n"I'll always be chasing you, Sidney," Washington said. "I'll always be following in your footsteps. There's nothing I would rather do. God bless you."\nTheir awards were the emotional high points of an evening that included several remembrances for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The final award for best picture, normally the show's main event, seemed anticlimactic by comparison when "A Beautiful Mind" was announced the winner.\nWith four Oscars, "A Beautiful Mind" dominated the main categories, earning Ron Howard the directing prize, Jennifer Connelly the supporting-actress trophy and Akiva Goldsman the award for adapted screenplay.\nAlso with four Oscars was the fantasy epic "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," which had led with 13 nominations. It won for best score, cinematography, visual effects and makeup.\nBerry sobbed and gasped when she took the stage and launched into a joyful three-minute speech. She cited black actresses who had helped open doors for minorities in Hollywood, including Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll and Dorothy Dandridge, whom Berry played in an Emmy-winning performance in "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge."\n"It's a great night. I never thought it would be possible in my lifetime," Berry said backstage. "I hope this means that they won't see our color. I think that's what makes us so unique. I think that maybe now we'll start to be judged on our merit and our work."\nPoitier, who won best actor for 1963's "Lilies of the Field," earned standing ovations from both the Oscar audience and from reporters backstage when he entered the press room to answer questions. After a series of clips highlighting his career, Poitier delivered an elegant speech thanking "visionary American filmmakers" such as Joseph Mankiewicz, Darryl Zanuck, Stanley Kramer and Norman Jewison.\nHe also paid tribute to black performers of the past.\n"I accept this award in memory of all the African-American actors and actresses who went before me in the difficult years," Poitier said. "On whose shoulders I was privileged to stand to see where I might go."\nRussell Crowe, star of "A Beautiful Mind" and best-actor winner last year for "Gladiator," lost his bid for back-to-back Oscars. Crowe played math genius John Nash in his decades-long struggle with schizophrenia.\n"We wouldn't be here if it weren't for Russell Crowe," Howard's producing partner, Brian Grazer, said as he accepted the best-picture Oscar. "His amazing dedication, work ethic and artistry have gotten us here."\nGrazer also thanked Nash and wife Alicia, played by Connelly, for inspiring a movie that "has given so many a greater understanding of the vagaries of the mind. ... I hope in some way our movie helps to improve the way we feel about and treat the mentally ill."\nThe film's producers fended off criticism during the Oscar campaign for having omitted some aspects of Nash's life, including a child born out of wedlock, the couple's divorce and remarriage and anti-Semitic remarks Nash said were made while suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Howard and Goldsman said some details were changed to make the film more dramatic or avoid detracting from the story.\nAnother tale of mental impairment, "Iris," earned the supporting-actor Oscar for Jim Broadbent, who played John Bayley, the befuddled but doting husband of Alzheimer's-afflicted writer Iris Murdoch. Broadbent thanked Bayley for allowing "us to plunder and I'm sure misrepresent his life with Iris."\nAt four hours, 23 minutes, it was the longest Oscar show ever, topping the previous record-holder two years ago by 14 minutes.\n"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.\nAfter 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."\n"I don't want your pity," Newman wisecracked, adding that he was thankful for having "so many chances to be humiliated over the years."\nThe 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 stuck together in a trench. France's "Amelie," which had five nominations, was expected to win.\nViewers 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.\nWhen 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.\nThe 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.\nLater, 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"