HOLLYWOOD -- They will be king and queen for a day at the 72nd Academy Awards Sunday.

Forget about pretenders to the throne like Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.

Annette Bening and Warren Beatty are the real royal couple for the evening being billed as Oscars 2000.

Bening, eight months pregnant with their fourth child, will attend the glamorous shindig as the American Beauty best actress nominee. Beatty picks up the Irving G. Thalberg honorary Academy Award for his producing prowess.

Both are from the industry's ruling class. Even their critics can't deny their regal presence.

"They know how to bully with the best of them, but they do it in a marvellously cajoling and charming way," says a producer who knows better than to be named.

Whatever their control-freak shortcomings, they are a class act.

Beatty's career, which will be celebrated at the Oscars, is a distinguished one.

He has been nominated 14 times and is the only actor to get academy nods as producer, director, writer and actor in the same film. Beatty achieved that twice with Heaven Can Wait in 1978 and Reds in 1981.

He won the director Oscar for Reds and was the producer, among other things, on award-winning hits such as Bonnie And Clyde, Shampoo and Bugsy.

"He started out producing when no other actors were doing that," says Bening, who domesticated the former gallivanting playboy. "Most actors who produce have others do it for them. Warren never did. He is good at producing, and has a real passion for it."

Bening's passion was of the mother and wife kind in the mid and late '90s.

In fact, she almost passed on the American Beauty role of the obsessed-with-success real estate wife because of her demanding schedule at home.

Intuition told her that giving up the part might be a mistake. "I knew it was something that I should do," she says, "so I made time for it."

But an Oscar nomination was the last thing on her American Beauty mind.

"We all did it for a small amount of money because we knew it was special," says Bening, who was previously nominated for her sexy Grifters con artist.

Certainly nobody in the cast or crew expected the film would gross over $100 million and earn eight nominations, including best picture, and best actor for Kevin Spacey, who plays Bening's disenchanted middle-class husband.

So far, it's American Beautiful. But not so fast. Despite the storybook potential for a wonderful life-style Beatty-Bening Oscar headline, there are rumblings this week.

Insiders are predicting Boys Don't Cry's Hilary Swank might pull an upset.

No matter. A gracious Bening says that she isn't going to worry about the winning or losing.

She's more concerned about bathroom breaks, wearing comfortable shoes and not sitting for long stretches.

These are the worries of a pregnant woman a month away from delivering what she predicts will be her last child. Getting caught up in Oscar voter trends is not what she cares about right now.

"Hilary Swank was inspired," Bening suggests. "She deserves the Oscar as much as anyone in that category.

"But let's face it," she says, "we all want to win. It's one of the tricky things about awards. But if you really care about who you are, you have to think about the Oscars in a superficial way.

"It shouldn't define you," adds Bening.

And apparently it doesn't.


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