‘Million Dollar Baby’ wins best picture

updated 7:28 p.m. ET March 1, 2005

LOS ANGELES - Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Jamie Foxx weren’t the only winners at the Academy Awards. Preliminary indications are it was a strong ratings performer for ABC.

More than 41 million people watched the Oscar show capped — a respectable showing but hardly the ratings knockout ABC had hoped for, first figures showed Monday.

The three-hour, 10 minute Oscar broadcast averaged 41.5 million viewers, down 5 percent or 2 million viewers from last year, when box-office powerhouse “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” was the big winner, according to preliminary data from Nielsen Media Research.

Last year’s Oscars were seen by 43.5 million people, a sharp 32 percent increase over 2003. Considering the ominous signs of ratings declines for the Golden Globes and Grammys this year, the numbers left ABC executives pleased.

Backstage at the Oscars, Eastwood contemplated how deserving he was to come away with his second best-picture and directing triumph, this time for the boxing tale “Million Dollar Baby.”

“There’s a lot of great movies that have won the Academy Award, and a lot of great movies that haven’t,” said Eastwood, whose film also earned Swank her second best-actress Oscar and Morgan Freeman the supporting-actor prize. Humbly, Eastwood added, “You just do the best you can.”

Other acting awards Sunday night went to performers in real-life roles, Foxx as lead actor for his uncanny emulation of Ray Charles in “Ray” and Cate Blanchett for supporting actress as Katharine Hepburn, the love of Howard Hughes’ life, in “The Aviator.”

Eastwood’s triumph meant fresh heartbreak for Martin Scorsese, whose Hughes epic “The Aviator” won the most awards with five but failed to bring him the directing Oscar that has eluded him throughout his distinguished career.

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Scorsese, now a five-time loser, matched the record of Oscar futility held by a handful of legendary filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Altman, who also went 0-for-5 in the directing category.

Eastwood, who directed a segment of Scorsese’s music-documentary TV series “The Blues,” had kind words for his rival backstage.

“I was kind of a little disappointed when they started building a competition between Marty and me,” Eastwood said. “I have the greatest respect for him and all the films he’s done over the years.”

Blanchett echoed Eastwood’s praise.

“Certainly, working with Martin Scorsese was an absolute minute-by-minute education without him ever being grandiose about it,” Blanchett said.

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