In the lead: The dashing Mr. Crowe

03/02/2001

By Jane Sumner / The Dallas Morning News

When Steve Martin comes to the mike on March 25, a Spaniard, two Americans and a couple of blokes from Down Under will be waiting to see who gets this year's big paperweight. All give head-turning perfs, but the money right now is on Russell Crowe. His authoritative turn as a Roman general forced to defend himself in the arena helped make Gladiator a summer smash.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that DreamWorks Pictures' classic throwback opened to $35 million. Or that it ultimately racked up more than $186 million domestically, making it 37th in all-time U.S. grosses.

Or that his best actor nom comes in the wake of a supporting one for playing gutsy whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand, who tried to keep Brown & Williamson from making more nicotine addicts, in The Insider. For that middle-aged role, the husky actor stacked on 38 pounds and went one-on-one with another Mr. Intensity: Al Pacino.

Warned not to hire the unknown Crowe as gunfighter turned preacher Cort for The Quick and the Dead, co-producer-star Sharon Stone insisted upon the man she calls "the sexiest guy working in movies today."

In his second U.S. film Virtuosity, he was vicious Sid 6.7, a dapper computer-programmed killer pursued by ex-cop/current convict Denzel Washington.

Mr. Crowe next sparked L.A. Confidential as the raging, brutal but still tender cop, who falls for Veronica Lake-like Kim Basinger.

Besides obsessive discipline and talent, it's that alluring mix of rowdiness and cheek with depth and caring that endears the rocker-actor to both sexes.

It's no secret that the son of former location caterers is a scrapper, a manic 24-hour guy, who got noticed playing a scary neo-Nazi skinhead in the Aussie Romper Stomper. Typically the next time up he opted to play a gay character.

It was no surprise when he took off with his mates on a 4,000-mile Harley-Davidson ride across his adopted homeland.

But neither was it a shock to learn that he won't slaughter his bovine "friends" on the 560-acre cattle farm he owns seven hours north of Sydney.

Russell Crowe isn't easy, but those who've worked with him say he's also funny, generous, sweet and fully involved. Win or lose, he can write his own ticket.

The nominees

Russell Crowe
Gladiator
Oscar Quotient: 10.0
Born: Wellington, New Zealand, April 7, 1964
Nominated: Spanish general, taken into slavery and trained for the gladiator games, squares off with the nasty Roman emperor who ordered his family slain.
Career highlights: After his break-out in Aussie film Romper Stomper, Sharon Stone nabbed him for The Quick and the Dead. Brutal-kind cop role in L.A. Confidential opened door to Oscar-nominated turn in The Insider.
What Oscar would mean: Fifty million women can't be wrong.

Tom Hanks
Cast Away
Oscar Quotient: 6.0
Born: Concord, Calif., July 9, 1956
Nominated: Fed Ex systems engineer marooned for four years on remote isle learns how to survive and what matters in life.
Career highlights: After break-out as cross-dresser in TV sitcom Bosom Buddies, he acted with a mermaid, big dog and all-girl baseball team. First actor since Spencer Tracy in 1937-8 to win back-to-back Oscars for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump.

What Oscar would mean: Academy doesn't think three's a crowd.

Ed Harris
Pollock
Oscar Quotient: 4.0
Born: Nov. 28, 1950, Englewood, N.J.
Nominated: Alcoholic archetypal "action painter" Jackson Pollock, whose innovative dribbled canvasses turned the modern art world on its ear.
Career highlights: Since break-out as King Arthur-like biker in discoverer George Romero's Knightriders, he's made 50 films and TVMs, often in supporting roles, such as Gene Kranz in Apollo 13 and Christof in The Truman Show, which both won Oscar noms.
What Oscar would mean: One of America's most riveting, powerful actors gets overdue gold.

Geoffrey Rush
Quills
Oscar Quotient: 3.5
Born: Toowoomba, Queensland, July 6, 1951
Nominated: In last years of his life, flamboyant French writer Marquis de Sade, denied pen, paper and ink, struggles to express himself in prison.
Career highlights: Aussie stage star and Mel Gibson's ex-roommate drew lauds and Best Actor Big O for troubled pianist in Shine. Nominated two years later for Shakespeare in Love.
What Oscar would mean: The staid Academy, shhh, is sadistic.

Javier Bardem
Before Night Falls
Oscar Quotient: 2.0
Born: May 1, 1969, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Gran Canaria, Spain
Nominated: The brilliant Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, whose homosexuality and writing were persecuted by Castro. Censored and imprisoned for two years, he continued to write and smuggled out a novel.
Career highlights: After more than 20 films (including Mouth to Mouth and Pedro Almodóvar's Live Flesh) as a big sexy macho star in Spain, he lost 35 pounds and learned English and Cuban Spanish for Julian Schnabel film.
What Oscar would mean: The Academy habla Español.