Award-winner Zeta-Jones gets Connery bonus

A VERY pregnant Catherine Zeta-Jones received a bonus when she accepted the supporting-actress award for playing jazz-singing murderess Velma Kelly in Chicago.

“My Scotsman giving me the Oscar, I can’t believe it,” she said after Sean Connery handed her the gold statuette. Besides thanking her husband, actor Michael Douglas, and their son, Dylan, Zeta-Jones sent out a hello to her hometown of Swansea, Wales. Zeta-Jones, 33, had a busy evening. Earlier in the show, she and Queen Latifah teamed to perform the nominated original song I Move On from Chicago. Zeta-Jones is expecting her and Douglas’s second child in April.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man sound mixer Kevin O’Connell broke the record for the most Oscar losses in history with his 16th defeat.

Last year, he and singer-composer Randy Newman tied the record for most nominations without a win, sharing the dubious honour with the late art director Roland Anderson and the late composer Alex North.

O’Connell was defeated this year by the Chicago team of Michael Minkler, Dominic Tavella and David Lee.

Last year, O’Connell was nominated for Pearl Harbor but lost to Black Hawk Down. North received an honorary Oscar but he never won a competitive award.