Its only been four years since Carrie Underwood won American Idol, but it felt like a long-overdue coronation when she was named entertainer of the year at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas on Sunday night.

The 26-year-old superstar beati out Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban, Brad Paisley and George Strait, four of country music’s top-selling male artists, all of them at least a decade older, to cement her place as the biggest star of country music’s next generation. 

She was also chosen top female vocalist by the academy and became only the seventh woman in 39 years to win entertainer of the year, joining such country icons as Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire and Barbara Mandrell.

“Its indescribable,”  Underwood told reporters backstage after an emotional acceptance speech in which she thanked God and her fans.

“I don’t know what happened. I honestly don’t,” she said. “I blacked out from my chair to about now.”

Asked by reporters about winning the award as a woman, she pronounced herself honored and said:  ”I can’t wait ’til the day where having females in this category is no big deal whatsoever.”

Underwood also recalled growing up in small-town Oklahoma, watching the Academy of Country Music Awards on television and waiting for the end of the broadcast to find out who won entertainer of the year.

“Entertainer of the year is the big enchilada,” she said.  They save it for the end for a reason. You sit on the floor (watching TV) and you wait for that.”

If Underwood is leading country music’s youth movement,  right behind her is 19-year-old Taylor Swift, who had the top-selling album in country music this year and enormous crossover appeal. 

Swift’s smash hit Fearless won album of the year over George Strait, Montgomery Gentry — and Underwood — on Sunday night and she delivered a stirring rendition of her single “You’re Not Sorry” from the piano.

Anyone want to count Taylor out for entertainer of the year in 2010?

Australian director Baz Luhrmann may not have his own Academy Award, but he joked on Friday that he secretly pretends using two Oscars won by his wife, set and costume designer Catherine Martin.

“Just for the record I do sneak in and grab the Oscars … run around with them … but she never knows I touch them,” he joked at the “G’Day USA” dinner in New York City on Friday where the director was being honoured by his homeland.

“I like to think of my incredible creative partner as a nominating machine,” said Luhrmann – who was nominated for an Oscar for “Moulin Rouge” in 2002 — after Martin received her fourth Oscar nomination this week for her work on “Australia.” Luhrmann, who directed “Australia,” was left out.

Luhrmann was honored at the dinner at the Waldorf Astoria by actress Nicole Kidman, who recalled her own memories of meeting her husband, country star Keith Urban, at a “G’day USA” event in Los Angeles.

“Four years ago I was honored at a similar event in Los Angeles and a young musician, very talented musician was being honored that night too, and I had never heard of him,” Kidman said. “Now I have heard of him and I have to say I owe a lot to this event.”

“G’day USA” is an annual week long celebration to promote Australia in the United States.

This past week, veteran Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein has kicked up a fuss in Hollywood by saying that Oscar winner Nicole Kidman is not a true Hollywood star. By Goldstein’s reckoning — and he wrote about it extensively in this past Saturday’s newspaper — Kidman’s box office appeal is not strong enough to label her a true star.

In fact, while Kidman is hounded by paparazzi around the world and regularly graces the cover of many a celebrity magazine, her movies have stumbled at box offices in recent years. The most recent example is epic “Australia,” which has taken in only $31 million in about two weeks in U.S. movie theaters.

But is being a “star” only about box office? What about style? What about glamour? What about the ability to command a presence when walking into a room? It can’t only be about money. Or, can it?

Actress Nicole Kidman and husband, country music star Keith Urban, are “in heaven” with the arrival of daughter Sunday Rose, according to an email Kidman sent New York Post columnist Liz Smith.

“Can’t stop staring at her in complete awe. Feeling incredibly blessed to have been given this precious little angel. Can’t wait for you to meet her!” Kidman wrote in the email that Smith published in her column.

Smith added that she hears Kidman and Urban won’t be selling photos of their nearly three-week-old daughter.

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban peaked the curiosity of their fans when the celebrity couple named their daughter Sunday Rose following her birth on Monday. There was no explanation so it fell to Kidman’s father to explain the name – and it turns out the infant is named after Sunday Reed, an Australian patron of the arts with a tumultuous life story.

“I have read a bit about Sunday Reed and her husband John — she was a key mover and shaker in the arts around the beginning of the century,” Antony Kidman, told The Daily Telegraph of Sydney. “The name Sunday struck me as being a nice name for a woman, so my wife and I mentioned it.”

Sunday Reed came from a wealthy family and in the 1930s, during the height of the Great Depression, she and her husband turned their home into a haven for artists. One of those artists was the late painter Sidney Nolan, who became entangled in a decade-long menage-a-trois with the Reeds and who made Sunday Reed into his muse.

Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman, 41, and Grammy-winning country singer Keith Urban, 40, both were raised in Australia. They recently attended an exhibition of Sidney Nolan’s art in the state of New South Wales, the Daily Telegraph reported. A quote from Nolan posted at the exhibit read: “When you are young you are given a good view of life, because of your closeness to birth,” according to the newspaper.

Sunday Rose Kidman Urban is the first biological daughter for Oscar-winner  Kidman, star of “The Golden Compass” and “The Interpreter.” The baby, who was born in the United States, reportedly got her middle name from Urban’s grandmother.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

Actress Nicole Kidman says being a mother motivates her work as a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador in the global fight to stem violence against women.

Kidman, who is seven months pregnant, is an ambassador for the U.N. Development Fund for Women and launched a Web site petition on Tuesday at U.N. headquarters in New York as part of a campaign to “Say No to Violence against Women.”

“I’m a mother, I have a child on the way, I have two children in the world and a lot of (my motivation) is about realizing the things that are wrong and how can I contribute,” she told a news conference.

“What are the things I can contribute to help my children have a better life and help other children around the world have a better life and other citizens of the world have a better life,” she said.

Kidman has two teenage children from her marriage to actor Tom Cruse and is expecting a baby with her second husband, country star Keith Urban.