Celebrity Mound

WE hate to ruin the suspense over the Academy Awards next Sunday night, but a lot of nominees needn’t bother preparing an acceptance speech. Oddsmaker Danny Sheridan says three of the top six categories are locks. Heath Ledger is 1:25 to win Best Supporting Actor. The other four con tenders, as a field, are 15:1. “Slumdog Millionaire” is 1:12 to win Best Picture, trailed by “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” at 5:1. And “Slumdog” director Danny Boyle is a lock for Best Director at 1:10. Kate Winslet (“The Reader”) is favored for Best Actress 1:2 over Meryl Streep (“Doubt”), who’s 3:1. The closest race is Best Actor, with Mickey Rourke (“The Wres tler”) a 5:7 favorite to beat Sean Penn (“Milk”) at 7:5. Forget Brad Pitt (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) and Angelina Jolie (“The Changeling”). Says Sheridan: “A lot of voters are not too fond of Pitt and Jolie.”

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The Golden Globes turned emotional Sunday night, with the naming of Heath Ledger as best supporting dramatic actor for his role as the Joker in the summer blockbuster The Dark Knight.

Presenter Demi Moore announced that a brief clip of Ledger’s work in the film had been prepared. Afterwards, Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan accepted Ledger’s posthumous award, and said he did so with “a mixture of sadness and incredible pride.”

Nolan said that rather than dwelling upon the gap left by Ledger’s death he preferred to concentrate on “the incredible place in the history of world cinema he built for himself.”

In another emotional moment, Sally Hawkins, acclaimed for her role as a North London schoolteacher in the comedy Happy-Go-Lucky, was named best actress in a comedy or musical – over as she called them, such “goddesses”] as Meryl Streep, Frances McDormand and Emma Thompson.

As a tearful Hawkins became choked up on the stage, Thompson flashed her hand signals to make sure she was okay.

Just before, British comedian Ricky Gervais cracked up the crowd when he reminded the evening’s supporting actress honoree Kate Winslet, for The Reader, that she’d win if she did a Holocaust movie. (That was the plotline of Winslet’s guest appearance on Gervais’s HBO series Extras).

The Jonas Brothers presented the best animated feature Globe to the makers of Disney-Pixar’s WALL-E.

Jennifer Lopez Starts the Show
Jennifer Lopez kicked off the show by presenting the night’s first award. “Hello! Mama talking! Mama talking!” she said as she tried to quiet the crowd to read the names of the nominees.

Within a minute, “Mama” announced the evening’s first winner, Kate Winslet, as the best supporting actress, for The Reader. In it, Winslet plays a German woman with a hidden past for her activities during World War II.

Clutching her trophy and unwrapping a sheet of paper, Winslet explained the length of her speech by saying, “I have a habit of not winning.”

To her husband – and Revolutionary Road director – Sam Mendes, she said, “I’m sorry I was so mental at the end.” Then, she waved to her two children, Mia and Joe, and said, “Look, I won!”

Bruce Springsteen, winning for his best song from The Wrestler, said laughing, “This is the only time I’ll be in competition with Clint Eastwood. It felt pretty good too.”

In the small screen division, Anna Paquin was honored for her leading role as a vampire lover on the HBO dramatic series True Blood, while Gabriel Byrne – who wasn’t at the ceremony – won as best actor for his starring role on the same network’s In Therapy.

Back to the Glitz
Billed as “the glamorous return of the Golden Globes,” Sunday night’s 66th awards ceremony, airing on NBC, brought an influx of stars to the Beverly Hilton Hotel’s grand ballroom for a champagne banquet – a stark contrast to last year’s scaled-down telecast owing to the Hollywood writers’ strike.

Last year’s situation also prevented Steven Spielberg from being presented the Cecil B. DeMille Award for career achievement, an omission to be rectified this year.

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EVERY penny of Heath Ledger’s estimated $20 million will go to his little girl Matilda Rose, Ledger’s father says.

In his will, which has been probated behind closed doors at the Supreme Court in Perth, Ledger left everything to his parents and three sisters.

Many observers expected his former partner Michelle Williams to lodge a claim on the will, which was signed by the actor on April 12, 2003, two years before Matilda was born.

The will left half of the estate to Ledger’s sisters, Kate and Olivia Ledger and Ashleigh Bell.

The remainder was to go to his parents, Kim Ledger and Sally Bell, after debts had been paid.

But Ledger’s father, Kim, says there will be no challenge and the family has given everything to Matilda.

“There is no claim,” Mr Ledger said. “Our family has gifted everything to Matilda.”

The 28-year-old Ledger doted on Matilda, but was separated from Williams, who joined the Ledger family in Perth for a memorial and wake on Cottesloe Beach in February.

Some estimates have put the value of the Heath Ledger estate at up to $20 million.

But Adelaide accountant Mark Dyson, who is an executor of the estate, said he could not reveal what Matilda would inherit.

The will, filed at the Manhattan equivalent of Australia’s Family Court after Ledger died in New York on January 22 from a cocktail of prescription drugs, puts the bulk of his assets into a trust.

Despite the millions of dollars in property in Ledger’s trusts, his will lists assets and cash of just $145,000, with no mention of mansions or millions.

Williams’ father has previously challenged the grieving Ledger family to publicly state the value of their son’s fortune.

Larry Williams, one of the world’s best-known stock market traders, said he was perplexed that documents filed in a New York court listed Ledger’s assets at just $145,000.

“It’s real simple: just come clean with everything,” he said.

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Heath Ledger’s bar, Five Leaves, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City is set to open on Wednesday, almost eight months after the actor’s untimely death.

“It’s all meant to be a super casual California- and Australia-tinged cafe, coffeehouse and oyster bar, with greenmarket snacks,” a critic for UrbanDaddy.com wrote.

With steel light fixtures and “wire concoctions that seem right out of a lab,” Five Leaves resembles “a bar that Thomas Edison might have built for his buddies,” according to the review. The door to the bar’s bathroom is a “massive, ’20s-era boiler room door.”

On the bar’s menu? Sliced radishes on toast with Evans Farmhouse butter.

Ledger, who financially backed the bar, died at age 28 of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs in January.

Ledger’s ex Michelle Williams lives with their 2-year-old daughter Matilda in Brooklyn.

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