Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker crowned Queen and King of the Oscars

Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker took the top acting prizes at Sunday night's 79th annual Academy Awards.

The stars of 'The Queen' and 'The Last King of Scotland' won Best Actress
and Best Actor respectively, while Martin Scorsese won Best Director for
'The Departed' - his first win out of six nominations in the category and 31
years since his first nomination.

As she accepted her award, Helen, struggling to hold the statuette, said:

"I've got my purse in one hand, my earring in the other. Thank you, Academy.
You know, my sister told me that all kids love to get gold stars, and this
is the biggest and the best gold star that I have ever had in my life."

A visibly moved Whitaker, who played Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, thanked everyone from his ancestors to the people of Uganda.

"Thank you. I wrote something down, because I
thought if it would happen that I would be a little overwhelmed and I am.
"When I was a kid, the only way that I saw movies was from the backseat of
my family's car - at the drive-in. It wasn't my reality to think I would be
acting in movies, so receiving this honor tonight tells me that it's
possible. It is possible for a kid from east Texas, who believes in his
dreams, commits himself to them with his heart, to touch them, and to have
them happen."

In his acceptance speech, Scorsese joked: "Could you double-check the
envelope, please?"
'The Departed' also won Best Film and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Other winners on the night included Jennifer Hudson, who walked away with
the Best Supporting Actress accolade for her performance in 'Dreamgirls',
while Alan Arkin took Best Supporting Actor for his role in 'Litte Miss
Sunshine'.

Jennifer Hudson says she shunned alcohol over the Oscars weekend to keep up her
gruelling fitness regime.
The 'Dreamgirls' star has been on a strict diet and exercise program and
refused to break it.
A source at the Giant Magazine party on Saturday night (24.02.07) said:
"Jennifer drank mineral water all night and didn't stay late because she had
to get up for an early morning workout with her personal trainer.

The 25-year-old looked stunning on the Oscar red carpet in her tight-fitting
Oscar de la Renta dress.

Accepting her award, Jennifer broke down in tears, saying: "I have to just
take this moment in. I cannot believe this. Look what God can do."
Jennifer's 'Dreamgirls' co-star Jamie Foxx made up for Jennifer's party
pooping at the Giant Magazine pre-Oscars bash, held at the Beverly Wilshire
hotel.
He was joined by a around a dozen women in his own private room where the
group drank until the early hours.

Earlier in the night, Alan Arkin said on the red carpet that he hoped his
co-star, ten-year-old Abigail Breslin, nominated for Best Supporting
Actress, lost.

In other news, Ellen DeGeneres tearfully admitted Monday, she was "scared to death."

On her talk show's post-Oscar special, DeGeneres played her video diary from Sunday night reports People

After the montage, a teary DeGeneres told her cheering audience, "I'm crying for many reasons. I'm tired, so I'm emotional ... [but hosting the Oscars] represented so many things to me. It represented that people believed in me, they took a chance in me to hold something like that together, that people would want to see me."

She went on to say that hosting the show "was hard. It was harder than I thought and I was scared to death. I didn't know how I would do. ... You know, you have confidence at the same time as you have insecurities."

79th Annual Academy Awards list of winners:

Best Picture
WINNER 'The Departed'
'Babel'
'Letters from Iwo Jima'
'Little Miss Sunshine'
'The Queen'

Best Actor
WINNER Forest Whitaker, 'The Last King of Scotland'
Leonardo DiCaprio, 'Blood Diamond'
Ryan Gosling, 'Half Nelson'
Peter O'Toole, 'Venus'
Will Smith, 'The Pursuit of Happyness'

Best Actress
WINNER Helen Mirren, 'The Queen'
Penelope Cruz, 'Volver'
Judi Dench, 'Notes on a Scandal'
Meryl Streep, 'The Devil Wears Prada'
Kate Winslet, 'Little Children'

Best Supporting Actor
WINNER Alan Arkin, 'Little Miss Sunshine'
Jackie Earle Haley, 'Little Children'
Djimon Hounsou, 'Blood Diamond'
Eddie Murphy, 'Dreamgirls'
Mark Wahlberg, 'The Departed'

Best Supporting Actress
WINNER Jennifer Hudson, 'Dreamgirls'
Adriana Barraza, 'Babel'
Cate Blanchett, 'Notes on a Scandal'
Abigail Breslin, 'Little Miss Sunshine'

Rinko Kikuchi, 'Babel'

Best Director
WINNER Martin Scorsese, 'The Departed'
Alejandro González Iñárritu, 'Babel'
Clint Eastwood, 'Letters from Iwo Jima'
Stephen Frears, 'The Queen'
Paul Greengrass, 'United 93'

Best Original Screenplay
WINNER 'Little Miss Sunshine'
'Babel'
'Letters from Iwo Jima'
'Pan's Labyrinth'
'The Queen'

Best Adapted Screenplay
WINNER 'The Departed'
'Borat'
'Children of Men'
'Little Children'
'Notes on a Scandal'

Foreign Language Film
WINNER 'The Lives of Others'
'After the Wedding'
'Days of Glory'
'Pan's Labyrinth'
'Water'

Animated Feature
WINNER 'Happy Feet'
'Cars'
'Monster House'

Music (Score)
WINNER 'Babel'
'The Good German'
'Notes on a Scandal'
'Pan's Labyrinth'
'The Queen'

Music (Song)
WINNER 'I Need to Wake Up' - 'An Inconvenient Truth'
'Listen' - 'Dreamgirls'
'Love You I Do' - 'Dreamgirls'
'Our Town' - 'Cars'
'Patience' - 'Dreamgirls'