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Heath Ledger as The Joker -
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Australia's Heath Ledger, who died last year, won the best
supporting actor Oscar for his maniacal performance as the Joker in
Batman movie The Dark Knight.
Ledger, who died at age 28 of an accidental prescription overdose,
was only the second actor to receive a posthumous Oscar.
Two months after his death from a heart attack, Peter Finch won
for his role as a TV anchorman in the 1976 film Network.
Ledger's Oscar was also a rare exception to the rule that Academy
Award voters overlook action-hero movies, and those who perform in
them, for the industry's highest honours.
"This award tonight .... validated Heath's quiet determination to
be truly accepted by you all here, his peers, in an industry that
he so loved," Ledger's father, Kim, said, accepting the Oscar on
his son's behalf with Ledger's mother, Sally Bell, and the actor's
sister, Kate Ledger.
"We have been truly overwhelmed by the honor and respect bestowed
on him with this award," Sally Bell said.
The publicity-shy Australian actor was found dead in his New York
apartment five months before the July 2008 release of The Dark
Knight.
His compelling performance, together with worldwide interest after
his death, helped power the Batman sequel to a global box-office
gross of more than US$1 billion.
Ledger was nominated for an Oscar for his 2005 role as a gay cowboy
in Brokeback Mountain but did not win the prize.
This time, Ledger picked up virtually every award for playing the
Joker.
In recent weeks, he won a Golden Globe, British BAFTA, Screen
Actors Guild and a slew of US and Australian critics' awards.
Movie actors, directors and producers have greeted each
announcement with standing ovations.
Ledger's Oscar will go eventually to his daughter with actress
Michelle Williams, his former fiancée, the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences decided.
Matilda Ledger, now three, will receive it when she turns
18.
Although never an A-list global celebrity before his death, Ledger
earned widespread attention in 2001 as the jousting squire in the
action romance A Knight's Tale and later won critical acclaim for
smaller parts in Monster's Ball and the Bob Dylan-inspired movie
I'm Not There.
Ledger's Australian family flew to Los Angeles to take part in
Sunday's Oscar ceremony.
