MAYOR AHUMADA WINS OSCAR FOR BEST PERFORMANCE

His stunning portrayal as the village idiot has earned Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada the 2009 Best Actor Academy Award for his edgy yet subtle performance in “The Check,” the summer blockbuster that inspired such lines as "Your honor, I am guilty of being stupid," and "Someone's got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press."

“Se avento el vato con el role," said Estanislao Contreras, author of "The Check", the novel about a border town mayor cursed with a potato head who believes that everyone is after him. At one point, the fat-headed mayor is accused of taking a $26,000 city check and-- in a scene right out of Hitchcock's "The Sleepwalker"-- the mayor claims there is an evil clone "out there" putting other people's money into his bank account.

Contreras, in his first movie as director, said it was hard to find a stunt double to play the swarthy bull-headed mayor in a critical scene where he pokes his head out of the car to smile at the bank teller. "Asi que ni modo, we were stuck with having to use the mayor en esas scenes, ese," Contreras said mellifluosly. "A mi me gusta la part where he goes on trial to explain the existence of another fatheaded gnome playing tricks on him."

For his part, the mayor said the role of the fool was a natural for him. "I just played myself, didn't need no rehearsing" he said Tuesday in his acceptance speech to the Academy. "I kept singing Buck Owens song 'Act Naturally' and that kept me focused." In the movie, the jury gave the beefy-headed mayor a standing ovation before finding him guilty.

"It was an unusual performance because he had to play the idiot convincingly, which he did," said Otis O'Connell, the literary town drunk who sat on the jury. "And his biblical defense that he knew not what he was doing was spellbinding. But in the end, it was his massive head that turned the jurors around. They believed that a guy with a big head had to have more brains. I can't wait for The Camille Playhouse to adapt the book into a play."

Contreras said he was working on a play tentatively titled, "Cabeza de Vaca," and hopes to lure the mayor into the role.