Heath Andrew Ledger

Heath Andrew Ledger was posthumously awarded the Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars for his outstanding portrayal of his character Joker in the movie The Dark Knight. He is the first actor to win an award posthumously. His family accepted the awards on behalf of him at the Academy Awards. He also won the Golden Globe Awards for the same role which was received by the director of the movie Christopher Nolan.

The Dark Knight is the sequel to the 2005 film "Batman Begins", directed by Christopher Nolan. The character of Joker is a psychopathic criminal mastermind who is unstoppable in his venture to outwit and humiliate Batman.

In order to prepare for his role, Ledger locked himself in a hotel room in London for nearly a month, formed a diary and experimented in various ways for his voice. He did this in his quest for an iconic voice and laugh. Eventually he ended up in being a psychopath, as a person with almost no conscience to his acts. The director Christopher Rolan had given him complete freedom to create his role. Ledger found his role very exciting as there were no boundaries to what his role can create.

Heath Ledger was an Australian film and Television actor. He had performed several roles in Australia during the 1990’s .By 1998 he moves to the US in order to improve his film career.His acting career began with the Australian Television Series "Clowning Around (1992)".

Few people are aware that Heath Ledger had "KAOS" tattooed across one wrist. They stood for Kate, Ashleigh, Olivia and Sally which are the names of his mom and three sisters.He died on January 22 2008, at the age of 28, due to an accidental overdose of toxic combination of prescription drugs.

Kate Elizabeth Winslet

Well known and much appreciated for her character Rose DeWitt Bukater in the 1997 American movie Titanic, Kate Winslet has won this year's Best Actress Award at the Oscars .She won this award for her character Hanna Schmitz in the movie The Reader.

The others nominated in the same category were:

Anne Hathaway – "Rachel Getting Married"
Angelina Jolie - “Changeling”
Melissa Leo - “Frozen River”
Meryl Streep - “Doubt”

Her acting career began with the TV series Dark Season in 1991. From then,on there has been no looking back for this talentedactress.Another critically acclaimed performance of hers was the portrayal of her character Marianne Dashwood in the movie Sense and Sensibility in 1995 .

Kate Winslet was the youngest actress to receive 2 oscar nominations at the age of 22.Now at the age of 33,she still remains the youngest actor of either sex to be credited with 6 nominations.

Sean Penn

This year’s prestigious award for Best Actor at the Oscars went Sean Penn for his outstanding performance in the movie “Milk”. The movie in total won 2 awards,the other one being Best Original screenplay for Dustin Lance Black Sean Penn had won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his outstanding performance in the film “Mystic River” in the year 2003.Sean Penn , to his credit has been nominated five times in the Oscars for Best Actor .

Sean Penn in addition to being an actor,is a film maker as well as political activist. His debut film was “Taps” in the year 1981 where he played the character of Cadet Captain Alex Dwyer.His directorial debut began in the year 1991 with the movie “The Indian Runner” . This film was based on Bruce Springsteen’s song “Highway Patrolman”. From then on he has directed 3 more films “The Crossing Guard”- 1995, “The Pledge” - 2001, and “Into the Wild” - 2007.

The Ceremony of the 81st Academy Awards:

This years oscars which was held on Feb 22nd at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles turned out to be the event of greatest significance.The show's producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon had committed to offer a totally different kind of show and it was indeed one of the best telecasts of oscar history.The ceremony was telecast live on the ABC Television Network as well as in more than 200 countries worldwide.

The greatest surprise was the opening song and dance medley by the first time host Hugh Jackman(in picture).The medley was a spoof of all the pictures which were nominated for the night.It was greatly appreciated by the audience and it received a standing ovation from them.The acting awards were presented in a unique manner as the previous 5 Oscar winners in each category took turns and introduced the nominees and applauded their work.

The best picture award was given to "SlumDog Millionaire" .In total this film received 8 awards.Sean Penn won the best actor award , Kate Winslet won the best actress award while Penelope Cruz won the best supporting actress award.Late Heath Ledger was given the oscar for the best supporting actor.Actor, writer , director and producer Jerry Lewis was honoured with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.