Belita Moreno

Aurabela "Belita" Moreno, born November 1, 1949, in Dallas, Texas, is an American actress whose career spans stage, film, and television. She is the daughter of Aurora Rodriguez, a high school Spanish teacher, and Abel Moreno, a World War II veteran who created the original logo for the Mexican restaurant chain El Chico. Moreno grew up alongside a younger sister, Elsie, and attended Justin F. Kimball High School before earning a full scholarship to Southern Methodist University, where she majored in Theatre. She later continued her training at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Santa Maria, California, where she performed in the musical Once Upon a Mattress.

After relocating to Hollywood to pursue her acting career, Moreno connected with director Robert Altman and appeared in three of his films: 3 Women, A Wedding, and A Perfect Couple. Her film work expanded to include Mommie Dearest, Swing Shift, Oh, God! You Devil, Nobody's Fool, Men Don't Leave, Clear and Present Danger, and Grosse Pointe Blank. From the early 1990s onward, she also worked as an acting coach and advisor on productions including Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Rush Hour 2, Parent Trap, The Family Man, Crossroads, and 17 Again.

On television, Moreno served as a series regular on the ABC sitcom Perfect Strangers from 1986 to 1992, playing both Edwina Twinkacetti and Lydia Markham. She later took on the recurring role of Benny Lopez, George Lopez's mother, on the ABC sitcom George Lopez from 2002 to 2007. Her additional television credits include appearances on The Golden Girls, Family Ties, Valerie, Melrose Place, and Wizards of Waverly Place, as well as the miniseries Tales of the City and television movies Crazy From the Heart and Death Benefit.

Moreno's stage career was closely tied to her relationship with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley, a former classmate at Southern Methodist University. Henley wrote roles specifically for Moreno, including "Popeye" in The Miss Firecracker Contest, a character whose dialogue drew in part from a story Moreno had shared with the playwright, and "Lacey Rollins" in the two-act play The Lucky Spot. Moreno performed in The Miss Firecracker Contest at the Victory Theater in Burbank, California, in 1980, and appeared in Lucky Spot off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club in 1987. She participated in at least four premieres of Henley's plays in total, including the 1989 world premiere of Abundance, in which she played "Macon" at the South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California.

Moreno's single Broadway credit came in 1982, when she appeared in Henley's The Wake of Jamey Foster at the Eugene O'Neill Theater, playing the role of "Katty Foster" in a production directed by Ulu Grosbard.