Oscar-winner Crowe launches solo singing career

Jul 21, 2005, 17:05 GMT

Sydney - Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe on Thursday launched his career as a solo performer in the Australian city where he has made his home with singer-songwriter wife Danielle Spencer.

The 41-year-old star of the swords-and-sandals epic "Gladiator" ran through songs from his new album "My Hand My Heart" to a crowd of just 150 people at The Vanguard in the inner suburb of Newtown.

Spencer was in the audience along with British singer Leo Sayer, film director Baz Luhrmann and former Superjesus singer Sarah McLeod, according to Australian news agency AAP.

Crowe performed "Raewyn", a song about the eponymous aunt who committed suicide as a teenager.

"I was feeling sorry for the death of a friend and it occurred to me that both my mother and father had lost siblings at an early stage," he told the crowd. "My mother's sister slashed her wrists in the bath."

Crowe's uncle died in an scuba diving accident.

Crowe toured the United States last year with 30 Odd Foot of Grunt before this year embarking on a solo singing project.

Audience members were provided with a song book so they could sing along and follow Crowe as he sang. "Consider this to be your hymn book for this evening," Crowe told the audience.

Crowe recently returned to is wife and child in Australia after promoting the boxing movie "Cinderella Man".

During the promotional tour, he grabbed headlines around the world for throwing a telephone in the face of a New York hotel concierge.

The New Zealand-born actor, who won an Academy Award for best actor for "Gladiator" in 2000, was charged with assault and faces up to seven years in jail if convicted.

The concierge, 28-year-old Nestor Estrada, was working in the lobby of Manhattan's Mercer Hotel when Crowe went ballistic after he was unable to call his wife in Sydney.