Names and faces

It’s been four years since Natalie Cole received a kidney from a Salvadoran donor, and the singer said it not only connected her to Hispanic culture, but it also gave her the strength to record her first post-operation album - totally in Spanish. “I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe everything happens for a reason. That this was a Latin family, I feel like I’m part Latino now. That [made] the desire to make this record become even stronger,” Cole said during a listening session of Natalie Cole En Espanol. Her donor was a young woman from El Salvador who died while giving birth, Cole said. “I couldn’t totally grasp, understand it, but there’s something there, the spirit of this young girl, the spirit of this family, the spirit of the Latin culture, of a Latin heart is inside me,” the 63-year-old said.The album title is reminiscent of her famous father Nat King Cole’s Cole Espanol, which earned him love and recognition in Spanish-speaking countries.

Reversing a policy that has more closely restricted membership in the past decade, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday invited276 film professionals - including actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Jason Bateman - to join its ranks. Last year 176 new members were invited. That number was roughly calculated to maintain the size of the group, which annually awards the Oscars, and was consistent with the practice since 2004, when the Academy moved to focus heavily on credentials, including recent Oscar nominations, in deciding whether to extend an invitation. Other actors on a list of 22 invitees - fewer than the 25 invited last year - include Lucy Liu, Jennifer Lopez, Charles Grodin and Milla Jovovich.