Happy Feet wins the Oscar

Win for Australia ... Happy Feet / supplied

GEORGE Miller`s Happy Feet surprised early favourite Cars to take out the Best Animated Feature Film today at the Academy Awards.

"Oh gosh," a surprised Miller said as he collected his award.

It is a monumental victory for the Australian film industry and 61-year-old Miller, who had been nominated for Oscars three times before but never won.

Happy Feet was made at Sydney`s Fox Studios with a largely Australian crew of more than 500 and used the voices of Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Steve Irwin and other Hollywood stars, including Robin Williams and Elijah Wood.

Animal Logic, the Australian special effects house based at Fox Studios, built an animation studio from scratch to make Happy Feet.

Bookmakers did not believe Happy Feet could win.

The overwhelming favourite for the animation Oscar was Cars, the blockbuster made by San Francisco-based, Disney-owned animation house Pixar, which had won two of the previous three Oscars for The Incredibles and Finding Nemo.

The other animated feature film nominee was Sony`s Monster House.

Meanwhile, Alan Arkin`s 28-year wait for an Academy Award ended today, after his turn as the foul-mouthed, drug-snorting grandpa in Little Miss Sunshine was rewarded with a best supporting actor Oscar.

Born in March 1934 in New York, Arkin, now 72, grew up in Brooklyn before his family relocated to Los Angeles in the 1950s.

His parents were both accused of being Communists during the witch hunts of the McCarthy era, allegations which cost his father his job.

Arkin, who had been taking acting lessons from an early age, won scholarships to various Los Angeles drama colleges before dropping out to form a folk music band, The Tarriers, in 1955.

The group had a hit with 1956`s The Banana Boat Song, and he continued to pursue a music career as well as acting for the next decade.

Arkin had appeared on the big screen for the first time with The Tarriers in 1957`s Calypso Heat Wave.

Acting stints with theatre groups in St Louis and Chicago came before a Broadway debut in From the Second City, which led to a role in acclaimed comedy Enter Laughing, for which he won a Tony Award.

In a rare feat, Arkin earned a best actor Oscar nomination for his first feature acting role, playing the Soviet sailor Rozanov, who is mistaken for a spy in the 1966 comedy The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.

That was followed by appearances in 1967`s Wait Until Dark, opposite Audrey Hepburn, and 1968`s The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, for which he received his second Oscar nomination playing a deaf-mute.

Many critics believe the best performance of Arkin`s career came in 1970`s Catch 22, the film adaptation of Joseph Heller`s best-selling novel.

Arkin appeared regularly on stage, television and the big screen from the 1970s to the 1990s, with notable roles in Edward Scissorhands, Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) and Jakob the Liar (1999).

He took it upon himself to create his Little Miss Sunshine character`s backstory, deciding that Grandpa Hoover should be a washed-up former saxophonist with a penchant for strip clubs and drugs.

"I love completely disreputable characters who spout philosophy," Arkin says. "He`s completely out there, wide open and nuts."

Married three times, Arkin lives in New Mexico and eschews the spotlight whenever possible. His idea of heaven is to "stay home for three months, living as quietly as humanly possible".

He bested Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children), Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond), Eddie Murphy (Dreamgirls) and Mark Wahlberg (The Departed) to take home the prized Oscars statuette today.

- with Agence-France Presse