Better late than never, and why not double the ante? Oscar winner Holly Hunter is pregnant for the first time at age 47 with twins, the entertainment news service E!Online reported.

Her due date is shortly before Christmas, the report said.

Hunter's spokeswoman Nicole Caruso confirmed the twin pregnancy on Wednesday, but she could not say whether Hunter would marry the first-time-father-to-be, the British actor Gordon MacDonald.

The couple met in 2004 when they played a romantic couple in the London theatre production of "By the Bog of Cats".

Hunter broke through to world fame in 1992 with her Oscar-winning performance as the mute musician, Ada, in "The Piano". Critics said that the 154-centimetre tall actress gave a specially credible portrayal of a young woman with oppressed sexual longings and thirst for freedom in the conservative middle-class society of the 19th century.