Rita Moreno

Rita Moreno, born Rosa Dolores Alverío Marcano on December 11, 1931, in Humacao, Puerto Rico, is an actress, dancer, and singer whose career has spanned eight decades. She is one of the rare performers to have achieved EGOT status, holding Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards, as well as the Triple Crown of Acting. Among her additional honors are the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, the National Medal of Arts in 2009, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2013, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2015, and a Peabody Award in 2019.

Moreno's mother relocated the family to New York City in 1936, and Moreno began dance training shortly after arriving, studying with a Spanish dancer known as Paco Cansino, a paternal uncle of Rita Hayworth. By age eleven she was providing her voice for Spanish-language versions of American films. At thirteen she made her Broadway debut as Angelina in the 1945 production of Skydrift, a performance that drew the attention of Hollywood talent scouts. She later adopted the surname of her mother's second husband, Edward Moreno, and spent her teenage years in Valley Stream on Long Island.

Her film career took shape during the final years of the Golden Age of Hollywood after she signed with MGM, which abbreviated her first name from Rosita to Rita. Her debut film was So Young, So Bad in 1950, followed by The Toast of New Orleans that same year. In 1952 she appeared in Stanley Donen's Singin' in the Rain alongside Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O'Connor, playing silent film star Zelda Zanders. She later took on the role of Tuptim in the 1956 film adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I, starring opposite Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr in a production that received nine Academy Award nominations and five wins.

Moreno's breakout came with the 1961 film West Side Story, directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, in which she played Anita. The film won ten Academy Awards, and Moreno received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first Hispanic woman to win that honor. Decades later she returned to the property in Steven Spielberg's 2021 remake, this time in the supporting role of Valentina.

Her Broadway career ran from 1945 to 1985 and encompassed a wide range of productions. After winning the Oscar, Moreno grew frustrated with the limited and stereotypical roles available to her in Hollywood and returned to the stage. She appeared in Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window in 1964, and went on to perform in Last of the Red Hot Lovers in 1969 and the musical Gantry in 1970. Her most celebrated stage work came with the 1975 Terrence McNally play The Ritz, in which she starred as Googie Gomez, earning her the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She reprised the role in the 1976 film version directed by Richard Lester, a performance that earned her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress nomination. In 1985 she appeared in the female version of The Odd Couple, for which she won the Sarah Siddons Award. Her Broadway credits also include Cafe.

Beyond stage and film, Moreno built a substantial television career. She was a cast member on The Electric Company from 1971 to 1977, work that contributed to her Grammy Award for Best Album for Children in 1972. She received two consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for appearances on The Muppet Show in 1977 and The Rockford Files in 1978. Her later television work included the HBO series Oz from 1997 to 2003, where she played Sister Peter Marie Reimondo, the animated series Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? from 1994 to 1999, The CW series Jane the Virgin from 2015 to 2019, and the Netflix revival of One Day at a Time from 2017 to 2020. Her life and career were the subject of the 2021 documentary Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It. Her other film credits include Popi in 1969, Carnal Knowledge in 1971, The Four Seasons in 1981, I Like It Like That in 1994, Slums of Beverly Hills in 1998, and Fast X in 2023.