CLASSIC PEARL: The Latin Sensation Has Been a Triple Threat for More than 60 Years and She’s Still Going Strong.
Jewel Magazine
By Justin Remus
The movie: West Side Story. The scene: a tenement rooftop on the west side of Manhattan. Five Puerto Rican girls, including Rita Moreno, who plays the strong-willed and independent Anita, line up and belt out the opening bars of “America”: I like to be in America / OK by me in America / Everything free in America…
Moreno separates from the crowd and lights up the screen: kicking, twirling, hiking up her skirt and strutting, almost performing a mock-tango at times. Despite the flurry of color and movement, your eyes are continually drawn to her, and with good reason—she’s a bundle of energy with attitude to spare. It’s this effervescent charisma and boundless talent that have propelled a career that now spans seven decades.
But everything wasn’t always free in America for Rita Moreno. Although the native Puerto Rican won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in West Side Story—a first for a Latina actress—it didn’t liberate her from the stereotypical ethnic roles that continued to be the only ones offered to her, which she found to be both unfulfilling and insulting. Having moved to New York at the age of five and appeared on Broadway at the age of 13 (Skydrift), Moreno had been typecast for most of her career. Prior to West Side Story, she appeared in a slew of B-movies and musicals, either as a “Latin spitfire” or an “Indian maiden.”
“Determined to be accepted on her own terms, Moreno compensated for her hiatus from film by working in television and theater, the latter of which she professes to be her greatest love.”
Of course, some of these parts were better than others—she played a Burmese slave girl in The King and I (1956), her first big break—but the dancer/singer/actress yearned to showcase her numerous talents in roles that transcended her ethnicity, a struggle that endured for much of her life.
“I decided once I won the Oscar that I was not going to do those kinds of movies again. At one point, I didn’t do a movie for seven years,” she said in an interview with NPR. Determined to be accepted on her own terms, Moreno compensated for her hiatus from film by working in television and theater, the latter of which she professes to be her greatest love.
Eventually, more diverse film offers came her way, such as when she played the prostitute whom Jack Nicholson “visits” in director Mike Nichols’ 1971 film Carnal Knowledge. Glamorous, no, but it was a superb (albeit brief) performance that once again demonstrated her versatile talent. Over time, Moreno was finally able to buck the Latin stereotype, playing everything from Shakespearean characters to the straight-talking nun in the HBO prison drama OZ.
In the 90s, Moreno had a successful one-woman show in which she sang, danced, and told stories. “That’s the good thing about being a performer who does many different things,” she told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. “I always have a venue. Always.”
But perhaps Rita Moreno’s greatest accomplishment is her awards quintuple play. She has the distinction of being one of only three performers who have won all five of the entertainment industry’s major awards: an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy (two, actually), a Grammy, and a Golden Globe. (The others are Whoopi Goldberg and Audrey Hepburn.) An inspiration for Latina actresses everywhere, it’s hard to imagine a Jennifer Lopez, a Salma Hayek, or an Eva Longoria without Moreno having first paved the way.
“The first time I met Rosie Perez, she started to cry,” Moreno told the Times Union Albany. “I can’t tell you how astonished I was that I meant that much to my colleagues of Hispanic descent.”
On top of her acting work, Moreno has long been an advocate for osteoporosis awareness and has lectured on numerous subjects in various venues over the years. She has also been on the board of directors of the Third World Cinema and the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. Still going strong well into the 21st Century, she has appeared onstage in many regional theaters with her daughter, Fernanda Luisa (who’s also an actress). Her most recent film, Play It By Ear, a romantic comedy directed by Lauren Flick, is soon to hit theaters.
Despite a journey fraught with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, singer, dancer, actress, storyteller, lecturer, advocate, trailblazer, wife and mother Rita Moreno has led—and continues to lead—a life that many would envy.
Copyright Star Media, 2006.