by Antonio Mejías-Rentas
Javier Bardem
OSCAR WIN: Javier Bardem became the first Spanish actor to win an Academy Award at the 80th annual ceremony in Los Angeles.
As expected, Bardem won the best supporting actor Oscar for his performance as a psychotic mass murderer in No Country For Old Men. It was one of four awards for the film, including Best Picture and Best Director – shared by brothers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen.
Bardem is only the fifth Latino actor to win an Oscar. Previous winners are José Ferrer, Anthony Quinn (twice), Rita Moreno and Benicio del Toro. All except Ferrer won in supporting categories.
The 80th Academy Awards were held Feb. 24 at Los Angeles’ Kodak Theater and broadcast live by ABC.
MILLION-DOLLAR BABIES: Twins, a boy and a girl, born Feb. 22 to Jennifer López and Marc Anthony last week in New York may be the couple’s most profi table collaboration to date.
Jennifer López and Marc Anthony at the Conde Nast Movies Rock event in LA. Feb. 22. (photo by the Wire Services)
People magazine is reportedly paying the nuyorican couple between $4 and $6 million for U.S. photo rights. The couple is said to be getting an additional $2 million from OK magazine for international rights, setting a record for celebrity baby pictures.
López, 38, confirmed her pregnancy at a Miami concert in November, the last stop of a limited U.S. tour with her 39-year-old husband.
Even though López is the highest-paid Hispanic artist in the United States, sales for her records and movies have declined in the last few years. She and Marc Anthony collaborated on her debut Spanish-language album, Cómo ama una mujer, which had worldwide sales of only 1.4 million copies.
The couple also produced and starred in El cantante, a critically-despised film about salsa singer Héctor Lavoe that cost about $3 million and yielded $7.6 in international box office sales.
ONE LINERS: Veteran actor Perry López, whose 40-year career included characters in Chinatown and Star Trek, died of lung cancer in a Beverly Hills hospice; he was 78… Guatemalan immigrant Juan Luis Ochoa Anderson, a parking attendant at a Los Angeles restaurant, won $318,000 in damages plus legal expenses from Egyptian actor Omar Shariff, who reportedly hit him and called him “stupid Mexican” when he refused to accept a 20 Euro bill in payment… and after 80 international celebrities signed a letter in support of Alejandro Sanz, Venezuela President Hugo Chávez denied that the Spanish singer, whose Feb. 14 concert at a state-run stadium in Caracas was cancelled, was banned from the country.
Hispanic Link.
