Ledger's final bow expected at Oscars

BY PETER MITCHELL

The final page of Australian actor Heath Ledger's short and remarkable life will be written today at the 81st Academy Awards.

If Ledger's name is announced as winner of the best supporting actor Oscar for his unnerving performance as villain The Joker in The Dark Knight, his heartbroken parents, Kim and Sally, and sister Kate, are expected to walk on stage inside Hollywood's Kodak Theatre to deliver the acceptance speech.

Standing ovations have greeted Ledger's wins at rival Hollywood award events the past month and the same is expected to occur if the Academy's 6000 voters follow the script at the movie industry's grandest night.

Bookmakers have Ledger at the slimmest of odds to claim the award while every reputable film critic and Oscar pundit has Ledger pencilled in as the winner.

Time magazine declared Ledger a "sure thing".

The New York Times simply told its readers: "No contest, no debate, Heath Ledger".

The Academy Awards ceremony will be a special night for Australia, with Hugh Jackman taking centre stage as the ceremony's host.

Oscar organisers have anointed the likeable 40-year-old from Sydney's northern suburbs the man to stem a steep slide in TV ratings for the annual awards night, but many TV critics in the US have branded Jackman a poor choice.

The big screen star and Broadway showman is expected to open the ceremony with a 12-minute singing and dancing number directed by another Australian, Baz Luhrmann.

"I don't want to give too much away, but there is a twist this year," Jackman hinted.

"We are going in a slightly different direction with the Oscars."

Ledger, who died 13 months ago aged 28 from an accidental prescription drug overdose, is one of six Australians nominated for Academy Awards.

Catherine Martin, for her costume work on the epic Australia, is hoping to pick up the third Oscar of her career after claiming two in 2002 for Moulin Rouge!

Australia will also be represented by Michael Carlin in the art direction category for the Keira Knightley period drama, The Duchess; Ben Snow is nominated for the visual effects Oscar for Iron Man; while two Aussies will fight it out for the film editing prize with Kirk Baxter (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Lee Smith (The Dark Knight) recognised.

If Ledger wins it will be the first time an Oscar has been awarded to a deceased actor since another Australian, Peter Finch, was named for Network in 1977.

Finch died from a heart attack in the lobby of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel two months before the ceremony.

Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight was a scene-stealer, but the Perth-born actor was anything but an attention-seeker away from the film set.

Friends and family members say the actor was never comfortable in front of a crowd.

When Ledger was nominated in 2006 for the best actor Oscar for his role as a gay ranch hand in Brokeback Mountain, a performance so raw and compelling the New York Times compared him to a young Marlon Brando. Ledger said he was relieved when Philip Seymour Hoffman won for Capote.

On Thursday, when his friends and family congregated at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont to hear young Sydney-based actor Oliver Ackland announced as the inaugural Australians in Film Heath Ledger Scholarship winner, director Gregor Jordan summed up Ledger's public persona.

"Heath would probably think this was pretty ridiculous and stupid," Jordan, who directed a 20-year-old Ledger in 1999's Two Hands, told the crowd.

Ironically, it is Hoffman who is given the biggest chance this year of causing an upset and robbing Ledger of the Oscar.

Hoffman is nominated for the drama, Doubt.

There are plenty of other rich storylines to follow at the Oscar ceremony.

Will Slumdog Millionaire, made for just US$15 million and with a cast filled with first-time actors plucked from the slums of India, beat the US$150 million fantasy epic starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for best picture?

Slumdog Millionaire, at one point considered so unmarketable it was slated to skip theatres and go directly on sale as a DVD, is the favourite.

The Academy is expected to confirm Mickey Rourke's rise from banished bad boy to best actor winner for his pained performance as a down and out professional wrestler in The Wrestler.

Rourke's biggest threat is another actor with a surly reputation, Sean Penn, nominated for Milk, a biopic about San Francisco mayor Harvey Milk, California's first openly gay elected official.

The actress categories could offer surprise winners.

Kate Winslet is the frontrunner to finally break through with a win in the best actress category for The Reader after five failed nominations in previous years, but a couple of factors could hand her a sixth Oscarless night.

Before last month's announcement of the Oscar nominations, Winslet campaigned ferociously for a nomination in the category for another film, Revolutionary Road, directed by her husband Sam Mendes and co-starring good friend Leonardo DiCaprio.

There was a campaign to nominate Winslet in the best supporting category for The Reader, despite it clearly being a powerful lead performance. Golden Globes and Screen Actor Guild voters conformed to the campaign, but the Academy did not, snubbing the Brit for Revolutionary Road and nominating her solely for The Reader.

Winslet's main rival is Meryl Streep, who could argue it is time for another win.

Streep is a two-time winner, but her last Oscar statue was handed to her in 1983 for Sophie's Choice and since that year she has been nominated 11 times without success.

Streep is nominated this year for her powerful performance in Doubt as a nun hellbent on proving a priest (Hoffman) is sexually abusing a young student.

In the best supporting actress category, Spanish beauty Penelope Cruz, for the Woody Allen-directed Vicky Cristina Barcelona, is the frontrunner while Amy Adams and Viola Davis, both nominated for Doubt, are considered strong chances to cause an upset.

Slumdog Millionaire's Danny Boyle is the short-priced favourite in the director category.

- AAP