Born: 28 April 1974
Where: Madrid, Spain
Awards: No major award nominations
By 2002, Penelope Cruz had become one of the most famous actresses in the world. Aside from her cinematic output, she stared down from Ralph Lauren posters everywhere, and there was the small matter of a relationship with Tom Cruise, then daily tabloid fodder following his split from Nicole Kidman. Unfortunately for Cruz, everyone knew who she was, but few knew what she did. Her huge success in Europe, where she'd appeared in two movies awarded Oscars as Best Foreign Language film and a slew of other notable productions, had passed most people by. To them, she was simply Tom's latest glamorous squeeze. So, having toiled to achieve Hollywood success (not easy for a non-English speaker), then been totally overshadowed by her illustrious partner, 2004's split from Cruise would see Penelope battling to maintain her position and win the respect she should have already received. The road had not been long - she was still only 30 - but it had been bumpy, indeed.
She was born Penelope Cruz Sanchez in Madrid on the 28th of April, 1974, her first name being inspired by a song by Joan Manuel Serrat. Her father Eduardo was a retailer, her mother, Encarna, a hairdresser, the family living in the working-class suburb of Alcobendas, about five kilometres north of Madrid. She has one younger sister, Monica, a professional flamenco dancer and TV star (she'd break through in Un Paso Adelante in 2002), and one brother, also younger, named after his father. Penelope was a natural performer, mimicking TV ads as soon as she could walk but, from the age of 4, it was dance that captured her imagination and dominated her life. She spent 9 years studying classical dance at Spain's National Conservatory, including three years of ballet with Angela Garrido, and a period of jazz dance with Raul Caballero. There were also four years of courses with Cristina Rota in New York City. Dropping out of secondary education early, at 15 she beat off the 300-strong competition at an agency audition and became a part-time fashion model. Pursuing drama studies in Madrid, she also appeared in music videos, one being for the popular band Mecano with whose singer, Nacho Cano, she'd have a relationship till 1996.
National fame arrived at 16 when she began to present Kids' TV programmes on Tele 5. There also arrived her first breakdown. Having studied feverishly throughout her pre-pubescence and teens, then stepped straight into pressurised work, she had over-extended herself and, having to take a break to recover from over-exhaustion, paid the penalty. This would happen again, once worldwide fame was beckoning.
Now concentrating on movies, Cruz found her career progressed quickly. First, in 1991, would come an appearance in Rafael Alcazar's The Greek Labyrinth (not released till 1993), an erotic mystery where a woman became obsessed with a disappeared dancer and hired a detective to dig for clues among the man's gay lovers and dodgy acquaintances in Barcelona. Penelope would add to the intrigue as the detective's precocious daughter, entering the fray in the world's skimpiest pair of shorts and revealing a rapacious taste for older men. She'd then move on to Framed, a Lynda La Plante TV thriller (later hacked to movie-size) where Timothy Dalton played a con arrested for his part in a major heist and ostensibly grassing his partners. Holed up in a safe-house, he attempts to cannily corrupt his police guards, Cruz adding glamour as the sensuous Lola, one of playboy Dalton's girlfriends.
These two would have constituted a reasonable opening to any screen career, especially as Penelope was only just 18. But she'd also now appear in two films that would make her a major player in Spain and the darling of art-houses across the globe. In Fernando Trueba's Belle Epoque, set in rural Spain in the 1930s, an army deserter is sheltered by an anarchistic artist and decides to stay on when his benefactor's four beautiful daughters arrive from Madrid. Thus begins a warm and charming celebration of sex and the human body as he seduces the young women one by one, Penelope playing Luz, the youngest, who's innocent but, annoyed at not being party to her more experienced sisters' secrets, would really rather not be.
The film was a huge hit in Spain, garnering nine Goya awards. It would also take the Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film. And there'd be more success with Bigas Luna's Jamon, Jamon, a steamy sex comedy where a rich family ran an underwear factory in a provincial town. When the son of the family falls for Penelope, the lowly daughter of the local brothel-keeper, his mother hires Javier Bardem to seduce Cruz and thus end the shameful affair. But the sneaky mum then herself falls for Bardem and, what with Cruz's lover regularly visiting her prostitute mother on the sly, the film mines a rich seam of outrageous, offensive, sexy and hilarious fun. Both Cruz and Bardem would be nominated for Goyas, while the movie would take the Silver Lion at Venice. The acclaim did much to calm the furore over Penelope appearing topless, which had enraged her boyfriend, Cano.
Now she served a further six years' apprenticeship in Europe's burgeoning and wildly inventive movie industry, first courting more controversy in the Italian production For Love, Only For Love. This was an offbeat biopic of Joseph, father of Jesus, with Penelope starring as Mary who, after a chaste relationship with the poor carpenter, turns up several months later pregnant. He knows the child is not his, despite the talk in the town, but marries her anyway, then begins to lose it when she demands that he now remain celibate. It was vaguely blasphemous stuff, but interesting, as was The Rebel, where she played a 16-year-old dropout, arrested for shoplifting with her sister and sent to a harsh nun-run reformatory. Here, teased by the other girls for being a virgin, she falls prey to predatory boys as sex, love and tough life-decisions enter the frame.
1994 would bring Fernando Colomo's Allegre Ma Non Troppo where 20-something gay guy Pere Ponce, disapproved of by his father and dumped by his boyfriend, auditions for the Spanish National Youth Orchestra, only to discover that his dad is one of the judges. Enter Penelope as a fellow musician who, with Ponce, wins a place in the orchestra and sets about "curing" the homosexuality that's causing him all these problems, first by sending him to a psychiatrist, then by seducing him and becoming his girlfriend. It was silly, saucy stuff, all the more so when the ambitious Cruz makes a play for Ponce's father.
