Australian actor Geoffrey Rush won the Best Actor Oscar for his splendid portrayal as David Helfgott in “Shine,” which was also nominated for Best Picture.
In 1998, Rush appeared as Queen Elizabeth's cunning advisor, Sir Francis Walsingham in “Elizabeth,” and as the theatre manager, Philip Henslowe in “Shakespeare in Love.” The latter performance earned him his second Oscar nomination, this time in the Supporting Actor category.
In 2001, Rush received his second Best Actor (and third) Oscar nomination for Philip Kaufman's biopic “Quills,” in which he portrays the impious eighteenth century French novelist Marquis de Sade (1740-1814). The prurient madness and maverick writings of Sade are by now stuff of legend and myth. The writer spent some 30 years in and out of prisons and asylums for acts of sexual offense, and for publishing his banned novels, which melded philosophy and pornography. He died in an asylum in France.
