‘Dances With Wolves,’ Irons, Bates Win Oscars : Academy Awards: Costner is best director; his film takes 7 prizes. Goldberg, Pesci honored in support roles.

Kevin Costner proved his critics wrong, and Oscar prognosticators right, Monday night when “Dances With Wolves,” his epic ode to a West long gone, won seven Academy Awards, including best picture, director and adapted screenplay.

Costner--who directed himself as an idealistic cavalry officer whose solitary life at a frontier outpost is interrupted, and forever transformed, when he encounters members of a tribe of Lakota Sioux--was passed over as best actor.

That honor went to Jeremy Irons, who portrayed sinister Klaus Von Bulow in “Reversal of Fortune.”

Kathy Bates was named best actress as the obsessed fan in “Misery.”

Whoopi Goldberg and Joe Pesci garnered Oscars for their supporting roles.

“Dances With Wolves,” which had 12 nominations, was widely viewed as the evening’s front-runner. Just a year ago, Hollywood skeptics--convinced that Costner had a flop the size of “Heaven’s Gate” on his hands--had tagged his three-hour directorial debut “Kevin’s Gate.”

Instead, “Dances With Wolves” became the first Western since “Cimarron” in 1931 to be named best picture by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences during its 63rd annual awards ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium.

“It’s very easy for people to trivialize what we do, (saying) that if it’s such a big deal how come no one remembers last year’s winner?” Costner said as he collected the best picture statuette with producer-partner Jim Wilson. “I will never forget what happened here tonight. My family will never forget. My Native American friends will never forget.”

Irons’ performance as the aristocratic attempted murder suspect Von Bulow had been widely praised by critics and had earned him an award from the National Society of Film Critics.

The actor, whose past film credits include “Dead Ringers” and “The French Lieutenant’s Woman,”’ reserved one of his thank-you’s for his co-star, Glenn Close, “for finally persuading me to do it.” After thanking the academy, Bates said she had been “waiting a long time to say that! I’d like to thank (co-star) Jimmy Caan and to apologize publicly for the ankles,” referring to the chilling scene in which she breaks the ankles of Caan’s fiction writer character with a sledgehammer.

Best known for her stage work, Bates’ Broadway credits include “ ‘Night, Mother,” “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean,” and “Fifth of July.”

Paramount’s surprise hit, “Ghost,” came away with two awards, for Bruce Joel Rubin’s original screenplay and Goldberg’s supporting role as Oda Mae Brown, a quack psychic who comes to the aid of two young lovers, one of them deceased.

Goldberg was the first black woman to win an Oscar since 1939, when Hattie McDaniel won for her supporting role as Scarlett O’Hara’s “Mammy” in “Gone With the Wind.”

The odds-on favorite going into the night, Goldberg choked back tears as she told the academy members and a worldwide television audience:

“I come from New York. When I was a little kid, I lived in the projects. You’re the people I watched; the people I wanted to be. I’m proud to be an actor.”

Goldberg, who started her career as a stand-up comic, had been nominated once before--for her 1985 debut in “The Color Purple.”

Since then, her screen record has been mixed, with lead roles in such films as “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Fatal Beauty,” “Clara’s Heart,” and “Homer and Eddie.”

In what was widely considered to be the most competitive acting category of the evening, the best supporting actor Oscar went to Pesci for his portrayal of a menacingly volatile gangster in Martin Scorsese’s “GoodFellas.”

When Pesci collected his gold-plated statuette, he left behind only five words: “It’s my privilege. Thank you.”

Pesci, who also appeared as a bungling burglar in “Home Alone” and the kinetic accountant in “Lethal Weapon 2,” last received an Oscar nomination for his performance in “Raging Bull”--another film in which he worked with Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro.

“The Godfather, Part III,” which Paramount executives had tried to get off the ground for the better part of two decades, had received seven nominations, but director Francis Coppola left the ceremonies empty-handed, as did the filmmakers behind another best picture nominee, “Awakenings.”

Warren Beatty’s comic book-turned-movie, “Dick Tracy,” was honored in the technical categories of makeup and art direction, and for best original song.

The 3-hour, 27-minute show--produced by TV and film director Gilbert Cates and broadcast live on ABC--brought comic actor Billy Crystal back for a second time as host.

As he did last year, Crystal spiced his opening monologue with biting, inside-Hollywood humor.

“We’re thankful tonight that no Americans are fighting anywhere--except at Paramount,” he joked in a reference to ousted chairman Frank Mancuso’s $45-million breach-of-contract lawsuit against Paramount Pictures.

In the wake of the Persian Gulf War, security was tight at the Shrine Auditorium, where the show returned this year after a hiatus at the newer, but smaller, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center.

The Shrine had been checked by teams of bomb-sniffing dogs, and the 6,000 formally dressed guests were guided through metal detectors before entering.

Following the theme “100 Years of Film,” Monday night’s show opened with a satellite hookup of actor Michael Caine in the Paris theater where the first moving picture was shown, followed by film clips in which dancers spilled off the screen and onto the stage.

The show included special tributes to actresses Myrna Loy and Sophia Loren.

The special Irving Thalberg Award went to Richard Zanuck and David Brown, who together produced such films as “Jaws, “The Sting,” “Cocoon,” and “The Verdict.”

“Dances With Wolves,” with more than $130 million in ticket sales so far, is one of those films that studio executives all over Hollywood are kicking themselves for not producing. When Costner was looking for financing, there was not much interest in a marathon-length Western, featuring many unknown actors speaking in subtitled Lakota Sioux dialect.

“It’s a dumb first movie,” Costner told The Times last fall, before the film had opened. “Full of kids, animals, first-time actors speaking in a foreign language. A period piece on top of that.

“My friends are afraid I’m going to be eaten up. . . . But I don’t care what Hollywood thinks. You can underline that.”

Costner wanted complete creative control of the film, so he bypassed the major studios. He even had trouble generating interest among independents. In order to get it produced, Costner had to defer his own salary and raise the first 40% of the film’s $18.5 million through independent sources overseas. Orion Pictures later agreed to finance the rest of the movie.

Shooting on the South Dakota frontier involved a cast of 500--including 48 speaking roles and parts for 150 Civil War soldiers and 175 Sioux--and a herd of buffalo that did not always cooperate with the director. The film, however, managed to sweep the technical filmmaking categories, earning Oscars for cinematography, film editing, original score and sound.

Blake, who just a few years ago was washing dishes and sleeping on friends’ sofas, won the Oscar for his screenplay based on his novel, which Costner had encouraged him to write.

“The miracle of ‘Dances With Wolves’ is that it proves this kind of dream can come true,” Blake said, as his Sioux companion translated into her native tongue. “Hold onto your dreams. Don’t let anyone take them away. Never give up.”

Costner, who is part Cherokee, majored in marketing at Cal State Fullerton, and did not even consider the acting business until his senior year.

His big break came when Lawrence Kasdan cast him as the suicide victim in “The Big Chill,” only to be almost entirely edited out of the final version.

Still, his acting career has thrived, with lead roles in “The Untouchables,” “No Way Out,” “Bull Durham,” and the sleeper hit “Field of Dreams.”

Only two actors have previously won Oscars for directing films--Robert Redford for “Ordinary People,” which also won best picture in 1980, and Warren Beatty for “Reds” in 1981.

In other categories, the Swiss film “Journey of Hope” was named best foreign language film.

The award for best feature-length documentary went to “American Dream,” in which producers Barbara Kopple and Arthur Cohn examined the lives of meatpackers on strike in the Midwest.