Rita Moreno (born Rosa Dolores Alverío Marcano; December 11, 1931) is a Puerto Rican actress, dancer, and singer. With a career spanning eight decades, she is known for her roles on stage and screen, and is one of the last remaining stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Among her numerous accolades, she is one of the few actors to have been awarded an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony (EGOT) and the Triple Crown of Acting. She has been honored with 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 early work included supporting roles in the classic musical films Singin' in the Rain (1952) and The King and I (1956), before her breakout role as Anita in West Side Story (1961), which earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, making her the first Hispanic woman to win an Academy Award. Moreno returned in the supporting role of Valentina in the 2021 Spielberg-directed remake of the same name. Her other films include Popi (1969), Carnal Knowledge (1971), The Four Seasons (1981), I Like It Like That (1994), Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), and Fast X (2023).
In theater, she starred as Googie Gomez in the 1975 Terrence McNally musical The Ritz earning her the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She reprised her role in the 1976 film directed by Richard Lester which earned her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress nomination. She also acted in Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window in 1964 and in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple in 1985.
Moreno was a cast member in The Electric Company (1971–1977), for which she earned an Grammy for Best Album for Children in 1972, and played Sister Peter Marie Reimondo on the HBO series Oz (1997–2003). She received two consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for her roles on The Muppet Show in 1977 and The Rockford Files in 1978. She acted in Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? (1994–1999), The CW series Jane the Virgin (2015–2019), and the Netflix revival of One Day at a Time (2017–2020). Her life was profiled in Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It (2021).
Rita Moreno was born Rosa Dolores Alverío Marcano, on December 11, 1931, in a Humacao, Puerto Rico, hospital to Rosa María (née Marcano) (1912–1999), a seamstress, and Francisco José "Paco" Alverío, a farmer who was born in 1908. Her parents divorced the following year. She was nicknamed "Rosita" and raised in nearby Juncos. Her maternal grandparents were Justino Marcano (b. Puerto Rico) and Trinidad from Spain.
Moreno's mother moved to New York City in 1936, taking her daughter, but not her son, Moreno's younger brother, Francisco, whom Moreno would not see again until 2021. Moreno adopted the surname of her first stepfather, Edward Moreno, Rosa Maria's second husband. She spent her teenage years living in the NYC suburb of Valley Stream on Long Island.
1945–1959: Theater debut and early films
Moreno began her first dancing lessons soon after arriving in New York with a Spanish dancer known as "Paco Cansino", who was a paternal uncle of film star Rita Hayworth. When she was 11 years old, she lent her voice to Spanish-language versions of American films. She had her first Broadway role, as "Angelina" in the 1945 production of Skydrift, by the age of 13, which caught the attention of Hollywood talent scouts. Moreno said she was raped by her agent while she was a teen actor.
Moreno's film career began in the later years of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Moreno and her mother moved to a Culver City "cottage" within walking distance of MGM. After signing a contract, Moreno began her cinema career, performing under the name of "Rosita Moreno". MGM had her first name abbreviated to Rita. Her first film was So Young, So Bad (1950). Moreno's contract with MGM was cut short, after which she found work in films independently. She acted steadily in films throughout the 1950s, usually in small roles, including in The Toast of New Orleans (1950). In 1952, she appeared in Stanley Donen's musical comedy film Singin' in the Rain alongside Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor. In the film she played silent film star Zelda Zanders. She described having gotten the role by Gene Kelly "wanting her in the movie" and that she "seemed to fit the role for him". Moreno praised Kelly for casting her in a non-stereotypical Hispanic role playing Zelda saying, "he never said 'Oh she's too Latina', he just thought I'd be fine for it". She called the experience working in the film as an "amazing experience" and a "privilege".
In March 1954, Moreno was featured on the cover of Life magazine with the caption "Rita Moreno: An Actress's Catalog of Sex and Innocence". She was the first Puerto Rican featured in this publication. Moreno disliked most of her film work during this period, as she felt the roles she was given were very stereotypical. One exception was her supporting role in the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I directed by Walter Lang. In the film she played Tuptim, a slave brought from Burma to be one of the King's junior wives. She starred alongside Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr. The film was a critical and financial success. It received nine Academy Award nominations including five wins including Best Actor, Best Art Direction – Color, Best Costume Design – Color, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Recording. In 1959, Moreno appeared as Lola Montez in Season 3, Episode 23, of the TV western Tales of Wells Fargo, episode title "Lola Montez".
1960–1969: Breakout with West Side Story
In 1961, Moreno landed the role of Anita in Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins' film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's and Stephen Sondheim's groundbreaking Broadway musical West Side Story, which had been played by Chita Rivera on Broadway. Moreno earned acclaim for her performance. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times described Moreno's performance full of "spitfire". Variety wrote, "Moreno...presents a fiery characterization and also scores hugely". The film went on to win ten Academy Awards including for Best Picture. Moreno won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for that role.
After winning the Oscar, Moreno thought she would be able to continue to perform less stereotypical film roles, but was disappointed:
Ha, ha. I showed them. I didn't make another movie for seven years after winning the Oscar.... Before West Side Story, I was always offered the stereotypical Latina roles. The Conchitas and Lolitas in westerns. I was always barefoot. It was humiliating, embarrassing stuff. But I did it because there was nothing else. After West Side Story, it was pretty much the same thing. A lot of gang stories.
Moreno became frustrated with the situation and left to London, where she joined the cast of She Loves Me. Due to work limitations for foreigners in the United Kingdom, she returned to Broadway in The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window.
Moreno had a major role in Summer and Smoke (1961), released soon after West Side Story. She did appear in one film during her self-imposed exile from Hollywood – Cry of Battle (1963) – although it had been filmed directly before and after she won the Academy Award. She made her return to film in The Night of the Following Day (1968) with Marlon Brando, and followed that with Popi (1969), and Marlowe (1969) with James Garner. Moreno's Broadway credits include Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1969), the musical Gantry (1970), and The Ritz, for which she won the 1975 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She appeared in the female version of The Odd Couple that ran in Chicago, for which she won the Sarah Siddons Award in 1985. Her costar Sally Struthers later stated in an interview on Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast that it was an unpleasant experience until Rita Moreno, who Struthers alleges was mean-spirited towards her, left the play and was replaced by Brenda Vaccaro.