MADRID – Oscar-winning Spanish film stars Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have become parents for the first time, a Spanish newspaper reported Wednesday, quoting sources close to the family. Cruz gave birth at the Cedars Sinai medical centre in Los Angeles, Spain’s leading daily El Pais said, but had no details as to when the baby was born or whether it was a boy or a girl.
“The couple want to have as much privacy as possible,” the paper said on its website. Cruz, 36, and Bardem, 41, met when they starred opposite each other as lusty teens in Bigas Luna’s film “Jamon, Jamon”, back in 1992. In 2008 they were back together on the silver screen in Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”, for which Cruz won an Academy Award as best supporting actress.
Bardem, nominated for an Oscar in “Before Night Falls” (2000), won an Academy Award in 2007 for his role in “No Country for Old Men”. On Tuesday, he received another Oscar nomination as best actor for his performance in the film “Biutiful” by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. El Pais said “friends of Bardem began to suspect (the baby was born) when the actor did not respond to any calls to congratulate him on his nomination.”
The couple married in July last year at a ceremony in the Bahamas. They had kept their romance quiet for years, but Bardem got personal when he won a best actor award at Cannes in May for his role in “Biutiful.”
