First housewives club

Desperate Housewives stole the show at the annual Emmy Awards in Los Angeles - with a clutch of accolades and matching floor-length gowns.

Felicity Huffman surprised critics by beating hot favourite Teri Hatcher to the prize for best actress in a comedy series.

But Huffman scotched rumours of a feud by hugging each of her co-stars in turn and dedicating her award to "all the women of Wisteria Lane" while Hatcher, Marcia Cross, Eva Longoria and Nicolette Sheridan smiled from the sidelines.

Huffman, 42, paid tribute to her husband, Fargo actor William H Macy, whom she met when she was his student at a theatre company. "I would like to thank the incomparable William H Macy for taking a chunky 22-year-old with a bad perm and glasses out into a cow pasture and kissing me and making me his wife," she said.

Briton Charles McDougall won the award for outstanding comedy series director for his work on the show, which also won the outstanding writing award.

McDougall said: "I brought my family here tonight from London and I'm delighted they put up with me doing this for 21 years."

The other most talked-about series of the season, Lost, scooped the best drama award. Its £3 million pilot episode won JJ Abrams the best director award.

The BBC's The Lost Prince, Stephen Poliakoff's historical drama about epileptic Prince John, youngest child of George V and Queen Mary, was best mini-series.

Australian actor Geoffrey Rush was best movie or miniseries actor for the BBC-made The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers. Other winners included William Shatner, named best supporting actor for Boston Legal, and Gwyneth Paltrow's mother Blythe Danner, best supporting actress for Huff.

In a downbeat ceremony, many stars wore magnolia flowers in their lapels in support Hurricane Katrina's victims.