George Clooney takes home first Oscar hon

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@sheetald

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Posted: 19 years ago

Hollywood superstar George Clooney won his first-ever Oscar on Sunday, picking up the best supporting actor prize for his role in the political drama "Syriana".

Clooney paid tribute to his fellow nominees and heralded Hollywood's oft criticised and outspoken liberal bent by saying that the movie world had brought the problems of AIDS, civil rights and other issues to national attention.

"I'm proud to be part of this academy and proud to be part of this community and proud to be out of touch," said Clooney, who also produced "Syriana", in which he plays an overweight former CIA agent at the centre of political intrigue in the movie.

Earlier, fans cheered their favourite stars from Jack Nicholson to Nicole Kidman as Hollywood's royalty strutted the Oscars red carpet at the biggest event on the cinema calendar.

With eight nominations, cowboy love story "Brokeback Mountain" was the hot favourite to dominate proceedings at the Sunday night ceremony, especially after the film picked up the best movie prize at Saturday's Independent Spirit Awards, which honour independently produced movies.

This year's Oscars are dominated by independent movies, and other top contenders like "Capote", "Transamerica" and "Crash" were also honoured at the Spirit awards.

This year's line up includes Jessica Alba, Owen Wilson, Clint Eastwood, Jennifer Aniston, last years best-actor winner Jamie Foxx, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, Hilary Swank, Charlize Theron and Meryl Streep.