Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey has accepted a year-long position as a theater professor at Oxford University, the institution said in a posting on its Web site on Friday.

Spacey, 48, who won Academy Awards for supporting actor in "The Usual Suspects" and lead actor in "American Beauty, is following in the footsteps of fellow performers such as Patrick Stewart, star of "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

Others who have occupied the post of Oxford's Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theater at St. Catherine's College include composer Stephen Sondheim, playwright Alan Ayckbourn, actress Diana Rigg and lyricist Sir Tim Rice.

[reuters]