“I got a contract from that, from not doing anything,” Moreno says in the documentary. Ma-jor!”Īt the tryout, Mayer gave Moreno one look and said, “My God - she looks like a Spanish Elizabeth Taylor.” The pair went to the Waldorf, where her mother stormed up to the concierge desk and said, “We have to see Louis B. Mayer was in town, staying in the penthouse of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, and Rita could audition for him. Impressed, he told Moreno’s mother that MGM head honcho Louis B. She continued dancing in late-night New York venues, when one day an MGM talent scout spotted her at a recital. “I dropped out of school when I was 15, something like that, and I started to work right away,” she said of her performing life. Watch ‘West Side Story’ trailer of Steven Spielberg’s 2021 remake At just 6, she made her debut in a Greenwich Village nightclub. There, Moreno quickly found her passion - Spanish dance. She moved to New York City in 1936 with her divorced mother, leaving her brother behind. Moreno was born Rosa Alverío in Humacao, Puerto Rico, in 1931. “It goes up and down,” Moreno, 89, says in the doc of her eight decades in showbiz. The EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) winner executive-produces and appears in Spielberg’s film, out in December she was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievement in 2015 and a new documentary about her life, “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl who Decided to Go for It,” hits theaters Friday after screening at the Tribeca Film Festival. The original Anita from 1961’s “West Side Story,” Moreno has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. When film fans got their first glimpse of Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” remake during this year’s Oscars, they heard a familiar voice singing the famous song “Somewhere” in the trailer: Rita Moreno. Mansion where iconic Audrey Hepburn played ‘Sabrina’ lists for $11M Monaco’s royal tribute to Grace Kelly reveals stunning family photos Her appearance on another children's program, The Muppet Show, earned her her Emmy and, with it, the coveted EGOT-an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award-in 1977.Jane Fonda: Why Katharine Hepburn ‘intimidated’ me on set of ‘On Golden Pond’Ĭastle with ties to Old Hollywood outside Manhattan lists for $1.64M For most of the '70s, Moreno was a member of the main cast of the popular children's show The Electric Company. She returned to regular film and television work and in 1975 won a Tony Award, again for Best Supporting Actress, for her role in The Ritz. Good Lord! I leave you with that."ĭespite this triumph, Moreno remained disenchanted with Hollywood and did not work on another film until 1968's The Night of the Following Day.
As she accepted her award for Best Supporting Actress, a bewildered Moreno kept her acceptance speech concise: "I can't believe it.
West Side Story was an enormous success, winning ten Oscars including Best Picture. One such song was "America," a piece with heavy Latin influences in which characters both celebrate the experience of Puerto Rican immigrants and decry their adopted country's racism. While many of the actors, including leads Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer, did not perform their own singing parts, Moreno recorded most of Anita's songs herself.
it was humiliating, embarrassing stuff." Nonetheless, she was successful, appearing in a supporting role in the The King and I, which won five Academy Awards in 1956.Ī few years later, she was cast in the role of her lifetime: Anita in the film remake of the musical West Side Story. Later in life, Moreno recalled her early career as a time when the only roles available to her were stereotypes: "The Conchitas and Lolitas in westerns. Moreno, who was born in Puerto Rico in 1931 and grew up in Long Island, New York, began acting at a young age, landing her first Broadway role at the age of 13. On April 9, 1962, Puerto Rican actress Rita Moreno becomes the first Hispanic woman to win an Oscar, for her role of Anita in West Side Story (1961).
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