Leo, who earned her first Oscar nomination for 2008 independent film "Frozen River," was favored to win coming into the world's top film honors playing the strong-willed mother of an up-and-coming champion boxer in "The Fighter."

Still, the veteran actress appeared nervous on stage, said she was speechless, asked presenter Kirk Douglas to pinch her to make sure the moment was real, then had her voice silenced when she uttered an expletive.

"I'm just shaking in my boots here," she said, before thanking her co-stars, director and producer in "The Fighter."

Three other early awards went to "Alice in Wonderland" for best art direction, "Inception" for cinematography and "Toy Story 3" for best animated film.

Co-hosts Franco and Hathaway got the Oscars program off to a comic start in a pre-taped video sequence in which they entered the "dreams" of Alec Baldwin much like the characters of best film nominee "Inception" entered the dreams of other people. From there, the pair traveled back to scenes of other top movie nominees -- "True Grit," "The Social Network," "The Fighter" and "The King's Speech," cracking wise.

"I have good news from the future, microphones get smaller," Hathaway joked in the sequence from "King's Speech."

Back onstage, she introduced her mom in the audience, who told her to stand up straight, and Franco's grandmother exclaimed that she'd just met Marky Mark, the stage name of actor/producer "Mark Wahlberg" when he was a rapper.

Producers also harkened back to Hollywood's history, showing scenes from "Gone With the Wind" and "Titanic."