"Gosford," "Mind" Get It Write

Julian Fellowes nabbed Best Original Screenplay for Gosford, Robert Altman's British ensemble whodunit, at Saturday's 54th Annual Writers Guild of America Awards, held simultaneously in New York and Beverly Hills.

Akiva Goldsman, meanwhile, picked up Best Adapted Screenplay for Mind, for his big-screen take on Sylvia Nassar's book about schizophrenic Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. The film already picked up this year's Golden Globe for Best Screenplay.

But whether the WGA honors predict Oscar glory remains another question. Two major Academy Award contenders--Christopher Nolan's Original Screenplay nominee Memento and Todd Field's Adapted Screenplay nominee In the Bedroom--were excluded from the Writers Guild Awards because neither film was a guild signatory.

As it turned out, Gosford Park topped a list of nominees that included The Royal Tenenbaums, The Man Who Wasn't There, Monster's Ball and Moulin Rouge.

Fellowes accepted the award with some words of encouragement, telling his fellow scribes, "My first produced screenplay wins the Writers Guild Award and takes me to the Oscar red carpet at the age of 52...Don't give up. It can still happen."

A Beautiful Mind led an adapted category that included Black Hawk Down, Bridget Jones's Diary, Ghost World The Lord of the Rings.

Over the past few years, the WGA Awards (voted on by 11,500 members of the guild) have successfully picked one of the two Best Screenplay Oscar winners. Last year, Traffic won both the WGA award and the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. But while the WGA picked You Can Count on Me for Best Original Screenplay, the Oscar ended up going to Almost Famous.

On the TV side, the WGA scribes singled out episodes of The Sopranos and Everybody Loves Raymond for its top honors, while a pair of World War II dramas scored for the long-form TV awards. HBO's Conspiracy was named Best Original Long Form Screenplay and ABC's Anne Frank was named Best Adapted Long Form Screenplay.

The guild also presented its Valentine Davies Award posthumously to David Angell, the Cheers and Frasier veteran who died on one of the planes hijacked by terrorists on September 11. And Blake Edwards received a standing ovation as he picked up the WGA's Screen Laurel lifetime-achievement honor.

Here's a complete rundown of the WGA winners:

MOTION PICTURE Original Screenplay: Gosford Park, Julian Fellowes Screenplay Adaptation: A Beautiful Mind, Akiva Goldsman, based on the book by Sylvia Nassar

TELEVISION Original Long-Form: Conspiracy, Loring Mandel Adapted Long-Form: Anne Frank, Kirk Ellis Episodic Drama: "Pine Barrens," The Sopranos, teleplay by Terence Winter, story by Tim Van Patten and Terence Winter Episodic Comedy: "Italy, Parts 1 & 2," Everybody Loves Raymond, Philip Rosenthal Comedy-Variety Special: The Kennedy Center Honors, Don Baer and George Stevens Jr., film sequences written by Sara Lukinson and Harry Miles Muheim Comedy-Variety Series: Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Mike Sweeney, Chris Albers, Ellen Barancik, Andy Blitz, Kevin Dorff, Jonathan Glaser, Michael Gordon, Brian Kiley, Michael Koman, Brian McCann, Guy Nicolucci, Conan O'Brien, Andrew Secunda, Robert Smigel, Brian Stack, Andrew Weinberg Daytime Serials: All My Children, Agnes Nixon, Jean Passanante, Craig Carlson, Frederick Johnson, N. Gail Lawrence, Victor Miller, Juliet Law Packer, Addie Walsh, Mimi Leahey, Bettina F. Bradbury, Charlotte Gibson, David Hiltbrand, Janet Iacobuzio, Royal Miller, John Piroman, Rebecca Taylor, Neal Bell Children's Script: My Louisiana Sky, Anna Sandor Documentary (current events): "Drug Wars, Part Two" Frontline, Lowell Bergman and Kenneth Levis, Doug Hamilton and Oriana Zill Documentary (other than current events): (tie) "Hitler's Lost Sub," Nova, Rushmore DeNooyer; "Scottsboro, An American Tragedy," The American Experience, Barak Goodman News (regularly scheduled): "Wedding Disaster," Jonathan Kaplan, CBS-TV (WBBM) News (analysis, feature or commentary): "The Cruelty Connection," Jonathan Kaplan, CBS-TV (WBBM) RADIO Documentary: "Eye On Death Row," Weekend Roundup, Wendy Zentz, CBS Radio Network News (regularly scheduled): "The Recount," Paul Farry, CBS Radio Network News (analysis, feature or commentary: "Preserving American Sound," Perspective, Scott L. Anderson, ABC News Radio On-air promotion: NBC Promotions, Lori Sunshine