Bardem wins best supporting actor

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Spanish performer Javier Bardem won the Oscar as best supporting actor on Sunday for his chilling portrait of a psychopathic killer in "No Country For Old Men."

Bardem, 38, who has won virtually every movie award this season for his performance, claimed the Oscar in his second bid for the film industry’s highest honour.

He previously was a best leading actor candidate for his role as a Cuban poet in the 2000 biopic "Before Night Falls," becoming the first Spaniard so nominated.

In "No Country," a violent modern western thriller directed by brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, Bardem plays a mostly silent but ruthless killer who often decides the fate of random victims with the toss of a coin.

A household name in his native Spain with four Goyas -- the Spanish equivalent of the Oscars -- and a movie and television career stretching back 18 years, Bardem has moved into mainstream Hollywood in recent years with movies like "Collateral" and "Love in the Time of Cholera."

He is the youngest in a Spanish family of actors and started acting at the age of 6. His breakthrough performance came in "Before Night Falls" (2000) in which he was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas.

Bardem lives in Madrid and has recently been romantically linked with .....continued below

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(Reporting by Jill Serjeant)