Russell Crowe back in NY court, this time to act

NEW YORK, Sep 16 (Reuters) Actor Russell Crowe went back on Friday to the court where he pleaded guilty last year to hitting a hotel clerk with a telephone -- this time as an actor rather than the defendant.

The New Zealand native was at Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday filming the upcoming movie ''American Gangster.'' Crowe, the star of such movies as ''A Beautiful Mind'' and ''Gladiator,'' hit a clerk with a telephone in June 2005 at a trendy SoHo hotel.

The Oscar-winning actor pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, and was fined 0 in November and told to stay out of trouble and avoid arrest for a year.

Crowe plays a detective in ''American Gangster,'' which is about a drug lord who smuggles heroin into Harlem during the 1970s in the coffins of US soldiers returning from Vietnam.

REUTERS SSC ND0910