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Feb 23, 2009–The 2009 Oscar Awards show, on Feb 22, 2009, was watched by a large audience, especially in the biggest markets. One year after the Oscar telecast declined to its smallest audience on record (32 million), audience was up by 13% to 36.3 million, according to preliminary Nielsen estimates. Audience peaked during the 10 p.m. ET half-hour, which included Heath Ledger's posthumous victory.
Feb 23, 2009–Exactly 13 months after his death from an accidental overdose, Heath Ledger won the supporting actor Oscar for his performance as the anarchic Joker in Chris Nolans' box-office hit “The Dark Knight.” “Menacing, mercurial, droll, diabolical,” was how Supporting Actor winner Kevin Kline described the performance in making the pre-award speech for Ledger as a past winner in the category. “Heath Ledger has left us an original and enduring legacy.”
Danny Boyle, who won Best Director for “Slumdog Millionaire,” said in his acceptance sopeech: My kids are too old to remember this now, but when they were much younger, I swore to them that if this miracle ever happened that I would receive it in the spirit of Tigger from “Winnie-the-Pooh” and that's what that was. You've been so generous to us this evening and I wanted to thank you for that and also for an extraordinary, what a beautiful show you've done. I don't know what it looks like on television, everybody, but in the room, it's bloody wonderful, really. So, well done, everyone.
The HBO Documentary Films presentation SMILE PINKI received an Oscar Award in the category of Best Documentary Short at the 81st annual Academy Awards, presented at the 2009 ceremony of the
Sean Penn won a second Best Actor Oscar for the biopic “Milk.” His First Actor Oscar was in 2003 for Clint Eastwood's “Mystic River.”
Penn, who reference President Barack Obama in his accesptance speech, went into greater detail backstage. “We know that his public position, in terms of the specific issue of gay marriage, has not been, let's say, officially supportive. I would like to believe that's a political stand right now, and not necessarily a future one and a felt one,” he said. “I don't think any of us and, in particular, our president, will long be able to take that position. He'll adapt.”
