Congratulations are in order for Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, who welcomed their first child together on Tuesday.

According to Spanish newspaper El Pais, the infant was born at Cedars Sinai Hospital in L.A.

Cruz, 36, first debuted her baby bump while shooting Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in Puerto Rico last September — just two months after she secretly tied the knot with Bardem, her Vicky Cristina Barcelona costar.

“He’s a friend and the best actor in the world,” Cruz has said of Bardem, 41.

The newborn’s name and gender have yet to be announced. [Source]

If Pe’s baby was indeed born on this day then that is a double Congratulations to this beautiful couple. Javier was announced as a contender for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards for his role in Biutiful. His category is Performance by an actor in a leading role; Biutiful was also nominated in the category Best foreign language film (Mexico).

Oscar-winning actors Javier Bardem, 41, and Penelope Cruz, 36, tied the knot earlier this month, Cruz’s rep confirmed to E! News. Say what?!

The small wedding, which was only attended by family members, took place at a friend’s home in the Bahamas.

The “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” co-stars began dating in 2007. Prior to that, Cruz was linked to Matthew McConaughey and Tom Cruise.

Bardem’s next flick is the Ryan Murphy-helmed “Eat Pray Love.” At yesterday’s event at the WGA honoring the writers of “Glee,” Murphy semi-confirmed that Bardem will be appearing in the upcoming season of the hit Fox show. [Source]

YAY!

Penelope Cruz is in negotiations to join Johnny Depp and sail the seven seas in “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” the fourth installment of the movie series being directed by Rob Marshall.

Depp is reprising his popular role of Captain Jack Sparrow, and while plot details are buried deeper than Blackbeard’s treasure, it is known the tale revolves around the Fountain of Youth.

Cruz’s character details are also being kept secret, though she is to be Sparrow’s foil and equal in many ways.

Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot wrote the script. Jerry Bruckheimer is producing.

For Cruz, the role reunites her with Marshall, who directed her in “Nine.” Her performance garnered her an Oscar nomination in the best supporting actress category just last week. She won the Oscar for best actress in a leading role for 2009′s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

“Pirates” will set sail before cameras in Hawaii this summer. Disney plans for a May 20, 2011, release.

NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES, and LONDON — “Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief,” today announced that some of the biggest names in film, television, and music will be working the phones and taking donations from Los Angeles during tonight’s broadcast. “Hope for Haiti Now” will air on Friday, January 22, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT and 7:00 p.m. CT.

The lineup of superstar operators includes (in alphabetical order): Ben Affleck, Tim Allen, Jennifer Aniston, David Archuleta, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Barkin, Drew Barrymore, Jack Black, Emily Blunt, Russell Brand, Benjamin Bratt, Pierce Brosnan, Gerard Butler, Chevy Chase, Kristin Chenoweth, Sacha Baron Cohen, Common, Cat Cora, Bradley Cooper, Daniel Craig, Cindy Crawford, Penelope Cruz, Billy Crystal, John Cusack, Eric Dane, Ellen DeGeneres, Fran Drescher, Michael Clarke Duncan, Zac Efron, Jenna Elfman, Colin Farrell, Andy Garcia, Mel Gibson, Tyrese Gibson, Selena Gomez, Neil Patrick Harris, Taraji P. Henson, Dijmon Honsou, Vanessa Hudgens, Randy Jackson, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Dwayne Johnson, Nick Jonas, Kevin Jonas, Joe Jonas, Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Michael Keaton, Anna Kendrick, Greg Kinnear, Jane Krakowski, John Krasinksi, Jessica Lange, Taylor Lautner, Daniel Day Lewis, Jared Leto, Justin Long, Rose McGowan, Ewan McGregor, Toby Maguire, Ricky Martin, Katharine McPhee, Debra Messing, Alyssa Milano, Jack Nicholson, Keke Palmer, Holly Robinson Peete, Tyler Perry, Chris Pine, Jeremy Piven, Jeremy Renner, Tim Robbins, Ray Romano, Jeri Ryan, Meg Ryan, Zoe Saldana, Adam Sandler, Nicole Scherzinger, Gabourey Sidibe, Kimora Lee Simmons, Russell Simmons, Christian Slater, Steven Spielberg, Molly Sims, Ringo Starr, Charlize Theron, Ashley Tisdale, Marisa Tomei, Amber Valleta, Sofia Vergara, Mark Wahlberg, Joe Walsh, Sigourney Weaver, Forest Whitaker, Olivia Wilde, Rainn Wilson, Robin Williams, Reese Witherspoon, and Noah Wyle.

Additional Information:

“Hope for Haiti Now” will begin accepting donations at 12:00 p.m. ET/9:00 a.m. PT on Friday, January 22 via the following methods:

Online: www.hopeforhaitinow.org
Phone: 877-99-HAITI
Text: Text “GIVE” to 50555
Mail: Hope For Haiti Now Fund, Entertainment Industry Foundation, 1201 West 5th Street, Suite T-700, Los Angeles, CA 90017

“Hope for Haiti Now” will feature Wyclef Jean in New York City, George Clooney in Los Angeles, and CNN’s Anderson Cooper reporting from Haiti, as well as President Bill Clinton, Ben Stiller, Brad Pitt, Chris Rock, Clint Eastwood, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jon Stewart, Julia Roberts, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman, Nicole Kidman, Robert Pattinson, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks, and Muhammad Ali.

“Hope for Haiti Now” will also include performances by Wyclef Jean, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, Shakira, and Sting in New York City; Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera, Dave Matthews, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Stevie Wonder, Taylor Swift, Emeline Michel and a group performance by Keith Urban, Kid Rock, and Sheryl Crow in Los Angeles; and Beyonce, Coldplay, and a group performance by Bono, The Edge, Jay-Z, and Rihanna in London.

“Hope for Haiti Now,” will benefit Oxfam America, Partners in Health, the Red Cross, UNICEF, United Nations World Food Programme, Yele Haiti Foundation, and the newly formed Clinton Bush Haiti Foundation. Proceeds from “Hope for Haiti Now” will be split among each organization’s individual funds for Haiti earthquake relief. With the exception of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, each partner organization was selected for its history of operation and collaboration within the NGO community in Haiti.

“Hope for Haiti Now” will air across ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, BET, The CW, HBO, MTV, VH1, CMT, PBS, TNT, Showtime, COMEDY CENTRAL, Bravo, E! Entertainment, National Geographic Channel, Oxygen, G4, CENTRIC, Current TV, Fuse, MLB Network, EPIX, Palladia, SoapNet, Style, Discovery Health, Planet Green, CNN en Espanol, HBO Latino, and Canadian networks including CBC Television, CTV, Global Television, and MuchMusic. The event will be live streamed online globally across sites including YouTube, Hulu, MySpace, Facebook, Fancast, AOL, MSN.com, Yahoo, Bing.com, BET.com, CNN.com, MTV.com, VH1.com, and Rhapsody and on mobile via Alltel, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and FloTV. “Hope for Haiti Now” will also air internationally on BET International, CNN International, National Geographic, and MTV Networks International, which is available in 640 million homes worldwide. “Hope for Haiti Now” will be available non-exclusively to all terrestrial radio stations around the globe and SIRIUS XM Radio as a one time only radio broadcast via the MTV Radio Network and Westwood One.

Based on production needs and venue sizes, all “Hope for Haiti Now” studio locations will be closed to the media. Photos, pool video footage and talent interviews from “Hope for Haiti Now” will be serviced to news outlets immediately following the event.

“Hope for Haiti Now” is produced by Joel Gallen and Tenth Planet Productions, in collaboration with Viacom’s MTV Networks and George Clooney. [Source]

If you can fnd it in your heart to donate, even as little as $1 – it counts. Help For Haiti Now!

Also, I have received your inquiries for affiliation with Penélope Fan, and I absolutely plan on getting back to you in the near future but I’m incredibly sick right now – so once I’m feeling back to my old self… you will hear back from me. I’m Qua, not Sarah (but that’s not your fault you didn’t know); I believe she had the site way back in Nov. of 2008 but the site as since been adopted out and my wonderful host Ms. Gertie granted me permission to maintain, Penélope Fan. I haven’t had the chance to do A LOT of behind the scenes work and sidebar work, so that is all my fault.

Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a comedy.

But when newly minted Oscar nominee Penélope Cruz was working on the film, she didn’t find anything all that funny about her character. She plays Maria Elena, a gun-wielding, whack job who gets mixed up in a relationship with her ex-husband (Javier Bardem) and American tourist Cristina (Scarlett Johansson).

“When we were in the middle of shooting, I felt like I was doing the most intense and disturbing drama I ever did in my career,” Cruz told me earlier today. “I never laughed until months later, when I saw the movie with an audience. At the beginning, I remember feeling like, ‘Why are they laughing?’ ”

Cruz watched the Oscar nomination announcements this morning with best friend Salma Hayek. “I did work on myself not to expect it because everyone has been screaming, ‘Yes, you will get the nomination,’ ” Cruz said. “There’s thousands of people voting, so then it’s more of a surprise if you get it.”

Cruz is up for Best Supporting Actress with Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler), Taraji P. Henson (Benjamin Button) and Doubt’s Amy Adams and Viola Davis.

Cruz, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2006 for Volver, recently wrapped her work on Rob Marshall’s upcoming movie adaptation of the Broadway musical Nine opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Marion Cotillard, Fergie, Judi Dench and Sophia Loren. (It hits theaters Nov. 27.)

“It was very scary because I had not danced in, like, 14 years, and I’ve never sang before in my life,” Cruz said. “I had to train for many, many months, but it was incredible.”

As Carla Albanese, Cruz sings and dances while hanging from a rope in the sexually charged number “Call From the Vatican.” The routine may have caused painful blisters on her hands, but it was worth it.

“I had so much fun doing it,” Cruz said. “I cried when it was all over because I had been doing it for months every day, and I don’t get to do it anymore. I think I have to have some ropes in my house for everybody that comes by.” [Source]

Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz have been forced into damage control mode after a protected witness told Mexican officials the pair stayed at a swank hacienda – that happened to be owned by a top Mexican drug traffickers – while filming the 2004 flick Bandidas.

The witness said the movie stars were guests of Sergio Villarreal, ???  ??  El Grande,???  ??? who is linked to the powerful Beltran Leyva organization.

Hayek told reporters that the production office for Bandidas set up the lodging in the mountainous state of Durango, and that she never met the owners. Cruz said she never stayed at the hacienda and her rep angrily chastised the Mexico City daily El Universal, which reported the allegations earlier this week. ???  ??  We are very surprised because we would have liked to have been asked about this before it was published,???  ??? said Antonio Rubial. ???  ??  We all know how these things work in Mexico and to what point the source is reliable.???  ???

El Universal claimed it had reached out Cruz before reporting the story, but that it got no answer. (After reading the Mexican newspapers for two years, I can say that it???  ??  ?s common practice for papers to print allegations without comments from the accused and then to print a follow-up story the next day with the response.)

Several Mexican stars have been linked to narcos in the Mexican press recently, mostly performers who reportedly gave private concerts. Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, the son of a Colombian drug lord, wrote in a recent book that Juan Gabriel performed for a narco party.

Bandits stars stayed at drug trafficker’s ranch

Call it method acting of a kind or a form of research. While shooting the movie Bandidas in northern Mexico four years ago, Pen?
? ??lope Cruz and Salma Hayek played outlaws by day before the cameras, and then allegedly slept at a ranch owned, appropriately enough, by a drug trafficker.

There is no suggestion the actors knew who the ranch owner was when they stayed for several nights, at the house beside a reservoir in the state of Durango. But it turns out the property belonged to Sergio Bernal, a man wanted on suspicion of drug trafficking and known locally as El Grande, or the Big One. Mexican paparazzi who covered the actors’ stay in Durango during the eight-week shoot say their security was unusually tight.

The revelation came from protected witnesses questioned by police hunting Bernal, according to the Mexican newspaper El Universal. Officials have not confirmed or denied the report.

Bernal was dismissed from the federal police in 1996 but worked his way into the inner circle of a trafficking gang run by the four Beltran Leyva brothers. They were blamed for the assassination in May of Mexico’s federal police chief who had captured one of them a few months before. The family’s recent split from Mexico’s biggest cartel run by Joaqu?
? ??n “El chapo” Guzm?
? ??n has also opened a vicious front in the wider drug turf wars already raging around the country.

Set about 100 years ago, Bandidas finds Hayek and Cruz slipping into a life of crime after joining together to hit back at the killers who murdered their families.

This is not the first time celebrities have become mixed up in Mexico’s underworld. Several Mexican singers, including the superstar Juan Gabriel, felt obliged to plead naivety last year when it was revealed they sang at private narco-fiestas.

Bands playing music popular in areas of the country where drug traffickers are powerful have been killed when their songs are taken up by a rival gang.

Here is what OsoBlog says and NYDailyNews.

Well, the long answer is that Scarlett Johansson didn’t join her co-stars Penelope Cruz (in Marquesa) and Rebecca Hall (in Alberta Ferretti) for the premiere of the new Woody Allen movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona at the Cannes Film Festival because of her list of “bloated demands”, as the Daily Mail calls them.

According to the Mail, the film company was laying on flights, a hotel, a limousine, a choice of designer gowns and hair and make-up people for Scarlett, Penelope and Rebecca. But Scarlett would only fly out to Cannes to promote the movie if she was able to bring “her own exclusive make-up consultant at a cost of 5,000 Euros a day” and was able to stay at a different hotel from the rest of the cast and crew, “some 25 to 30 miles away”

The Oscar-winning Spanish actor says he is exhausted and will not finally take part in the film version of the hit musical ‘Nine‘.
Spanish actor and Oscar winner as Best Supporting Actor in ???  ??
S No Country for Old Men???  ??  ?, Javier Bardem has announced his retirement ???  ?? ?
S for a year. The actor says he is exhausted and is therefore taking a sabbatical year, and that means that he will not finally take part in the film version of the musical Nine.

His girlfriend, Pen?
? ??lope Cruz, will remain with the project however. Variety magazine says he has decided to take the year to recharge his batteries.