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Oscar
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Julia Roberts, Best Actress
JULIA ROBERTS won her first Oscar, a Best Actress award for her portrayal of a feisty legal assistant in the drama "Erin Brockovich".
It was the first Oscar win for hugely popular Roberts, 33, who is the movie industry's most bankable female star and who has garnered a handful of other awards for her "Erin Brockovich" role.
Roberts, who shot to fame in the 1990 romantic comedy "Pretty Woman", was clear favourite for the Oscar after delivering a gutsy performance as a real-life single mother who took on a US gas company in a class-action lawsuit.
Russell Crowe, Best Actor
A YEAR after losing a first-time Oscar bid for his powerful 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.
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.
Marcia Gay Harden, Best Supporting Actress
MARCIA Gay Harden accepted her Oscar for best supporting actress.
Harden's win came as a surprise as most pundits had tipped Goldie Hawn's daughter Kate Hudson to take the best supporting actress trophy for her role in "Almost Famous".
Harden, a self-described military "brat" who was raised around the world, started her career on the stage and won a Tony nomination for her performance on Broadway in the AIDS drama "Angels in America".
Benicio Del Toro, Best Supporting Actor
MORE than ten years after breaking into television playing bad guys, Benicio Del Toro won the Oscar award for best supporting actor portraying a heroic Mexican narcotics cop in "Traffic".
As his surname suggests -- Del Toro means "of the bull" in Spanish -- the 29-year-old Puerto Rican-born actor has been hard-charging and unstoppable, winning universal acclaim for his role in Stephen Soderbergh's tale of the drug trade along the US-Mexican border.
His work in "Traffic" won him a Golden Globe in January and the Screen Actors Guild's top award earlier this month.
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