WOMEN OF A CERTAIN AGE.

Byline: -- Rob Lowman

The complaint that there are no roles for older actresses in Hollywood isn't exactly true.

While roles for women 45 and older may not be that plentiful, they are still being recognized.

Three of the Oscar best actress spots are going to 55-year-old-plus stars. And none of them is playing a remotely hot item -- unless a spinster teacher (Dame Judi Dench, 72, as Barbara Covett in ``Notes on a Scandal''), an ice-cold fashionista (Meryl Streep, 58, as Miranda Priestly in ``The Devil Wears Prada'') or a stiff monarch (Helen Mirren, 61, as Queen Elizabeth II in ``The Queen'') turns you on.

If Streep -- who holds the record for nominations -- wins, it will be her third Oscar. Dench has a statuette for best supporting actress, and this is Mirren's third nod, the first as best actress.

By the way, only three women -- Marie Dressler (64), Geraldine Page (62) and Jessica Tandy (80) -- have won a best actress award at older than 60, with Tandy holding the record, winning for ``Driving Miss Daisy.'' More precisely, only three lead actresses have ever won the Oscar over 50, since no actress has ever won in her 50s. So Streep could set a new mark.

The trio will be up against the relatively youthful Penelope Cruz (32) with her first nomination, and 31-year-old Kate Winslet with her fifth nomination already, the youngest performer to get five nods. (Olivia de Havilland at 33 held the old record.)

But, as they say, there is nothing like a Dame. So don't bet against age. Mirren even played a decade older for her role. Queen Elizabeth II was 71 when Princess Diana was killed in 1997.

OSCAR trivia

Abigail Breslin will turn 11 on April 14. She is just a few months older than Tatum O'Neil was when she won -- at 10 1/2 -- for best supporting actress in ``Paper Moon'' in 1974.

The five Oscar-nominated films together have taken in $242.7 million in the U.S., while ``Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest'' -- the box-office champ of 2006 -- took in $433 million.

In the acting categories, 10 individuals are first-time nominees. The other 10 share a total of 49 nominations. Three (Meryl Streep, Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett) are previous Oscar winners.

Leading actress nominee Judi Dench is the only performer who was also nominated last year (for ``Mrs. Henderson Presents'').

Meryl Streep's acting nod this year gives her 14 nominations, breaking the record she set in 2002. Jack Nicholson and Katharine Hepburn are tied at 12 nominations each.

At 31, Kate Winslet is the youngest performer to receive five acting nominations. The previous record holder was Olivia de Havilland, who was 33 when she received her fifth nomination, in 1949, for ``The Heiress.''

Should he win an Oscar this year in the leading actor category, Peter O'Toole would join Henry Fonda and Paul Newman as actors who won their first competitive Oscars after having received Honorary Awards from the academy.

The 38-year interval between nominations for Alan Arkin is not a record for performers. Arkin's interval ties Jack Palance's between ``Shane'' (1953) and ``City Slickers'' (1991), and represents less of a wait than Helen Hayes had -- 39 years between ``The Sin of Madelon Claudet'' (1931/32) and ``Airport'' (1970) -- and Henry Fonda -- 41 years between acting nominations for ``The Grapes of Wrath'' (1940) and ``On Golden Pond'' (1981).

Penelope Cruz and Rinko Kikuchi are both nominated for foreign-language performances. Four performers have won Academy Awards for roles using spoken languages other than English.

``I Need to Wake Up'' from ``An Inconvenient Truth'' is the first song from a documentary film to be nominated since ``More'' from ``Mondo Cane'' in 1963.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1) DENCH

(2) STREEP

(3) MIRREN

Box:

OSCAR trivia (see text)