- Born
- Birth nameRosita Dolores Alverio
- Height5′ 2½″ (1.59 m)
- Rita Moreno is one of the very few performers to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony and a Grammy, thus becoming an EGOT. She was born Rosita Dolores Alverío in the hospital in Humacao, Puerto Rico on December 11, 1931 (but raised in nearby, smaller Juncos, which had no hospital), to seamstress Rosa María (Marcano) and farmer Francisco José "Paco" Alverío. Her mother moved to New York City in 1937, taking Rita with her while leaving her reportedly unfaithful husband and Rita's younger brother behind. Rita's professional career began before she reached adolescence.
From the age of nine, she performed as a professional dancer in New York night clubs. At age 11, she landed her first movie experience, dubbing Spanish-language versions of US films. Less than a month before her 14th birthday on November 22, 1945, she made her Broadway debut in the play "Skydrift" at the Belasco Theatre, costarring with Arthur Keegan and a young Eli Wallach. Although she would not appear again on Broadway for almost two decades, Rita Moreno, as she was billed in the play, had arrived professionally. In 1950, she was signed by MGM, but the studio dropped her option after just one year.
The cover of the March 1, 1954, edition of "Life Magazine" featured a three-quarters, over-the-left-shoulder profile of the young Puerto Rican actress/entertainer with the provocative title "Rita Moreno: An Actresses' Catalog of Sex and Innocence". It was sexpot time, a stereotype that would plague her throughout the decade. If not cast as a Hispanic pepper pot, she could rely on being cast as another "exotic", such as her appearance on Father Knows Best (1954) as an exchange student from India. Because of a dearth of decent material, Moreno had to play roles in movies that she considered degrading. Among the better pictures she earned featured roles in were the classic Singin' in the Rain (1952) and The King and I (1956).
Director Robert Wise, who was chosen to co-direct West Side Story (1961) (the film version of the smash Broadway musical, a retelling of William Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" with the warring Venetian clans the Montagues and Capulets re-envisioned as Irish/Polish and Puerto Rican adolescent street gangs, the Jets and the Sharks), cast Moreno as "Anita", the Puerto Rican girlfriend of Sharks' leader Bernardo, whose sister Maria is the piece's Juliet.
However, despite her talent, roles commensurate with that talent were not forthcoming in the 1960s. The following decade would prove kinder, possibly because the beautiful Moreno had aged gracefully and could now be seen by filmmakers, TV producers and casting directors as something other than the spitfire/sexpot that Hispanic women were supposed to conform to. Ironically, it was in two vastly diverging roles--that of a $100 hooker in director Mike Nichols' brilliant realization of Jules Feiffer's acerbic look at male sexuality, Carnal Knowledge (1971), and Milly the Helper in the children's TV show The Electric Company (1971)--that signaled a career renaissance.
Moreno won a 1972 Grammy Award for her contribution to "The Electric Company"'s soundtrack album, following it up three years later with a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical for "The Ritz" (a role she would reprise in the film version, The Ritz (1976)). She then won Emmy Awards for The Muppet Show (1976) and The Rockford Files (1974).
She has continued to work steadily on screen (both large and small) and on stage, solidifying her reputation as a national treasure, a status that was officially ratified with the award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in June 2004.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood
- SpouseDr. Leonard Isadore Gordon(June 18, 1965 - June 30, 2010) (his death, 1 child)
- Children
- ParentsFrancisco José AlveríoRosa María Alverío (Marcano)
- RelativesCameron David Fisher(Grandchild)Justin Fisher(Grandchild)
- When filming her final scene in West Side Story (1961) in which her character "Anita" is harassed and nearly raped by New York street gang members "the Jets", she was reduced to tears, as it brought flashbacks of similar real-life childhood experiences. When she broke down, the other actors in the scene immediately stopped to comfort her and help her get through the scene. The sequence sets up a critical plot element and is essential to the story.
- When her star was unveiled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she fell on top of it, openly and uncontrollably weeping. She later commented, "I had been dreaming of this day since I was six!".
- Was the first Hispanic woman to win an Oscar when she won for West Side Story (1961). However, she was not the first Hispanic entertainer to win an Oscar. That was fellow Puerto Rican José Ferrer for Cyrano de Bergerac (1950).
- In her memoir she describes how stunned she was when a handsome stranger, with his wife on his arm, very brazenly flirted with her. It was the 1950s and the man was then-Sen. John F. Kennedy. Moreno also described her disappointment about one-time lover Elvis Presley being much more like "a baby brother" than a stud.
- Following Debbie Reynolds's death in December 2016, Moreno is the last surviving main cast member of Singin' in the Rain (1952).
- Bigger than life is not difficult for me. I am bigger than life.
- It is very important that women of this country be made aware of the dangers of osteoporosis in the sense that it is a silent and invisible disease with no symptoms whatsoever.
- [Her Oscar acceptance speech] I can't believe it! Good Lord! I'll leave you with that.
- A lot of young Latino actors have said to me, "Why can't we get an Oscar? Why can't we be nominated?" And the terrible truth is that if you don't get the right parts, you're not going to be. Are you going to get an Oscar nomination for one of those Judd Apatow movies? Not likely, no matter what nationality you are. And I think that until we as Latino actors get to do roles that have really serious meaning, it's going to be impossible to get nominated.
- Once we went to the apartment of some brothers. Obviously, their parents were not at home. One of them was a big flirt, and he had a little bit of peach fuzz over his upper lip, and he was making eyes at me. He said, "Whatever you do, don't put on perfume, because that really makes me crazy." Immediately, I went into his mother's bedroom and dabbed some behind my ears.
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