'Dirty tricks' may bring Oscars forward

Dirty tricks campaigns aimed at some of Hollywood's biggest stars lie behind a plan by Oscar organisers to bring forward next year's ceremony.

Senior officials at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts are increasingly concerned the world's most prestigious acting awards are being undermined by attempts to denigrate stars such as Russell Crowe and Halle Berry at the expense of rival nominations.

They are particularly alarmed at the whispering campaign launched against Crowe's A Beautiful Mind, which won best picture. Reports inside Hollywood only weeks before the Oscars claimed the film-makers had ignored evidence that Nobel Prize winner John Nash, the brilliant but mentally unstable subject of the film, was virulently anti-semitic.

The new plan would push the Oscars back to February from their traditional end of March date. The organisers fears the authority of the awards is being damaged and hope that cutting the time between announcing the nominations and handing out the Oscars will make it more difficult to mount smear campaigns.