Put on the pictures and meet them

Penélope Cruz

Will success spoil Penélope Cruz? At age 26 she seems to be on target to become a major Hollywood star. A ravishingly beautiful woman, Cruz has established herself as Spain's most popular actress of her generation. Winning her country's coveted Goya Award as best actress last year is already a powerful indication that Cruz is destined to enjoy the kind of extraordinary career -in Spain and abroad- that no other Spanish actress has ever achieved.Last March, Cruz was seen with fellow Spaniard Antonio Banderas presenting the Oscar for best foreign film to Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, for Todo Sobre mi Madre, which coincidentally starred her in one of her most difficult roles to date.

In addition, she's now appearing in Woman on Top, the romantic comedy about a Brazilian chef who becomes a famous TV personality because of her brilliant cooking and on-screen charisma.Penélope Cruz will also be seen in Billy Bob Thorton's new film, All the Pretty Horses, where she plays an aristocratic Mexican woman who falls in love with an American drifter played by Matt Damon. Persistent rumors indicate the romance is not fictitious at all.At press time, she was negotiating to star with Tom Cruise in Paramount Pictures' Vanilla Sky, and had recently completed Captain Correlli's Mandolin for Universal Pictures/Miramax.

Her list of Spanish credits also include Jamón, Jamón; the Oscar-winning foreign film Belle Epoque, the film that turned her into Spain's leading female actress; and Almodóvar's All About My Mother, where she plays a nun who falls in love with an AIDS-infected man and then dies from the disease. Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid, Spain, on April 28, 1974. Her father, Eduardo, was a retailer, and her mother a hairdresser. They named their daughter Penélope after a song written by Spanish singer/composer Joan Manuel Serrat. The couple has two other children, Eduardo Jr. and Mónica. Penélope had a romance with Nacho Cano, member of the group Mecano, with whom she lived until they broke up and she moved in with fellow actor Gigi Sarrasola, but that romance also enden.