Cate Blanchett has won the best actress Oscar, putting an exclamation point on a golden and history-making night for Australia at the Academy Awards.
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Blanchett won for her performance in Woody Allen’s drama, Blue Jasmine.
It is the second Academy Award win of the Melbourne-born, Sydney-based Blanchett’s career and followed fellow Aussie Catherine Martin’s two Oscars on Sunday night for her work on The Great Gatsby.
‘‘There is so much talent in Australia,’’ Blanchett said.
‘‘CM and I are just the tip of the iceberg.’’
Blanchett was the white hot favourite for the actress Oscar, despite competing against high-calibre nominees Sandra Bullock (Gravity), Meryl Streep (August: Osage County), Judi Dench (Philomena) and Amy Adams (American Hustle).
Blanchett becomes the first Australian actor to win more than one Oscar, setting herself apart from single winners Nicole Kidman, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Peter Finch and Heath Ledger.
She won a supporting actress trophy in 2005 for her portrayal of screen great Katharine Hepburn in the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator.
Martin won the costume design and production design Oscars, giving her four career Academy Awards, eclipsing another costume designer, Orry George Kelly, who was the Australian record-holder with three for An American in Paris, Cole Porter’s Les Girls and the Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon comedy Some Like it Hot in the 1950s and ’60s.
Martin shared her production design Oscar with The Great Gatsby set decorator Beverley Dunn.
Allen missed out on the original screenplay Oscar for Blue Jasmine, with Spike Jonze taking the honour for Her. Some commentators had suggested Blanchett should not mention Allen in her acceptance speech after he faced molestation accusations from his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow. He has not been charged.
Blanchett did praise the director. ‘‘Thank you so much Woody for casting me,’’ she said.
Pictures: GETTY IMAGES
AAP