Catherine Zeta Jones wins Tony Award

Actors Catherine Zeta Jones and Douglas Hodge, and playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn won Tony Awards in New York on a strong night for British talent.

Zeta Jones, 40, won best actress in a musical for A Little Night Music while Hodge, 50, won the equivalent actor award for La Cage Aux Folles.

John Logan's Red, produced by London's Donmar Warehouse, was the night's big winner with six including best play.

Denzel Washington and Scarlett Johansson were also among the winners.

Sir Alan, 71, who won the play revival Tony for The Norman Conquests last year, was given the lifetime achievement prize at the Broadway awards.

Amorous actress

Red - a two-man drama about artist Mark Rothko starring British actor Alfred Molina - came out on top with six awards, including best play and best director for the Donmar's artistic director Michael Grandage.

The play, which first appeared in the West End in December 2009, transferred to Broadway in March.

Red's Eddie Redmayne won best supporting actor in a play but Molina lost out on the best actor prize to Washington, who won for his performance in the revival of August Wilson drama Fences.

Fellow Briton Jude Law had also been nominated for his Broadway performances of Hamlet.

Oscar-winner Washington, 55, who plays a sanitation man who missed out on becoming a baseball star in Fences, said in his speech at Radio City Music Hall: "My mother always says, 'man gives the award, God gives the reward'.

"I guess I got both tonight."

Viola Davis, who co-starred in 2008 film Doubt alongside Meryl Streep, won best actress for Fences, which first appeared on Broadway in 1987 and also won best play revival.

'Tremendous encouragement'

Zeta Jones, who won for her role as amorous actress Desiree Armfeldt in the revival of 1973 musical A Little Night Music, thanked her colleagues and actor husband Michael Douglas who she said she "gets to sleep with every night".

"I really do feel like Cinderella," she said.

Hodge beat his La Cage co-star Kelsey Grammer to win his Tony

Hodge, meanwhile, who last year won an Olivier award for playing the same role of drag queen Albin/Zaza in London's West End, said his award was a "tremendous encouragement".

"It just feels like I can really get on with it now and dig deeper and deeper and mean it more and more," said Hodge whose co-star Kelsey Grammer - of Frasier fame - was nominated in the same category.

Scarlett Johansson, who won best supporting actress for her debut in Arthur Miller's A View From A Bridge, said: "Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be on Broadway and here I am."

Memphis, set in the 1950s American south and featuring a score of rock, soul and gospel, won four awards including best musical.

La Cage Aux Folles and Fela! - based on the music of Nigerian afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti - led the nominations with 11 each but both ended up with three.