Associated Press

Los Angeles:

The 77th Academy Awards had one thing or other for many except for Martin Scorsese whose dream of winning a directorial award was shattered again as he lost the directing race for the fifth time.

The boxing saga ‘Million Dollar Baby’ was the Academy Awards heavyweight, claiming best picture and three other trophies, including honours for director Clint Eastwood, lead-actress Hilary Swank and supporting-actor Morgan Freeman. Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Aviator’ came away with the most Oscars, its five awards including the supporting-actress prize for Cate Blanchett. Eastwood, 74, became the oldest directing winner ever, noted his mother was with him when his Western ‘Unforgiven’ won the 1992 best picture and directing Oscar. The 77th Oscars were another heartbreak for Scorsese, the man behind ‘The Aviator’, who lost the directing race for the fifth time. Scorsese matched the record of Oscar futility held by a handful of legendary filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Altman, who also went 0-for-5 in the directing category.

Swank became a double Academy Award winner for ‘Million Dollar Baby’, while Jamie Foxx took lead actor for ‘Ray’. The wins for Freeman and Foxx made it only the second time blacks won two of the four acting prizes. Swank, who previously won the best-actress Oscar for ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, once again beat out main rival Annette Bening, nominated for the theatre farce ‘Being Julia’. Bening had been the front-runner for ‘American Beauty’ five years ago but lost to underdog Swank. Swank joined Vivien Leigh, Helen Hayes, Sally Field and Luise Rainer as the only actresses with a perfect track record at the Oscars: Two nominations and two wins.

Foxx won for his uncanny emulation of Ray Charles in ‘Ray’. As he had at earlier awards triumphs, Foxx led the Oscar audience in a rendition of the call-and-response chant from Charles’ 1959 hit ‘What’d I Say’, whose funky electric-piano grooves play over the opening credits of ‘Ray’. “Give it up for Ray Charles and his beautiful legacy. And thank you Ray Charles for living,” said Foxx, who climbed to Oscar glory after an early career built mainly on comedy, including his TV series ‘The Jamie Foxx Show’. Foxx had been a double Oscar nominee, also picked in the supporting category for the hit man thriller ‘Collateral’. Playing Katharine Hepburn in ‘The Aviator’, Blanchett had the spirit of the Oscars’ most-honoured actress on her side. Hepburn, the love of Hughes’ life in the 1930s before she began her long romance with Spencer Tracy, earned 12 nominations and won a record four Oscars. Oscar host Chris Rock said Blanchett was so convincing that Sidney Poitier, Hepburn’s co-star in ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’, showed up at Blanchett’s house for supper.