Movie industry insiders name Crowe for Oscar

By NAOMI LARKIN

New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe has been tipped for an Oscar for the second year running.

A movie industry report says the Gladiator star's toughest competition in the Academy Awards race will come from Australian Geoffrey Rush for Quills.

Last year, Crowe was nominated best actor for his role as a former tobacco company executive battling the cigarette industry in the film Insider, but the Oscar went to Kevin Spacey for his part in American Beauty.

Crowe, Rush and Mel Gibson (starring in What Women Want and The Patriot) were last month nominated for best actor awards at the Golden Globes, which are often seen as a pointer to the Academy Awards.

Crowe's romantic drama Proof Of Life, the film which led to his affair with co-star Meg Ryan, is also reported to be on the list of nominations - albeit much further down.

Meanwhile, speculation over Crowe's affair with Ryan escalated, with reports that the pair were planning a secret New Year wedding on his Australian ranch. But the wedding theory appears to be at the least premature as Ryan is still married to American actor Dennis Quaid.

The suggestion that the pair were planning to marry followed days of party preparations on Crowe's Nana Glen property, 30km west of Coffs Harbour.

This included a flurry of arrivals at the farm on Friday, tight security, an all-night party and a performance by Crowe's band, 30 Odd Foot Of Grunt.

But local people said that Crowe had made a habit of holding a party on his farm over New Year for several years.

Honor Lymburn, the mother of Crowe's only niece, 12-year-old Chelsea Crowe, told the Herald yesterday that her daughter flew from Taupo last week to join her uncle on his Nana Glen farm.

She declined to comment on the wedding speculation.

Honor Lymburn said she was aware a party was planned but understood that it might already have been held.

Chelsea Crowe accompanied Crowe to last year's Oscar awards.

Nominations for next year's Academy Awards had to be submitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills by December 1.