British actress Kate Winslet won her first best actress Oscar for her performance in "The Reader", an adaptation of a German novel about a law student's love affair with an older woman post World War II.

"I'll be lying if I say that I have not prepared a version of this speech since the time I was eight and in the bathroom and this trophy was a bottle of shampoo. But it's not a shampoo bottle anymore. I feel very fortunate to have made it from there to here," Winslet said after receiving the award here Sunday.

Winslet also won the Golden Globe and British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for best actress for "The Reader".

She had been earlier nominated for the Oscar six times, including that for her role in "Titanic", but it was "The Reader" that got her the coveted trophy for the first time.