Rita Moreno

Award-winning Actor, Dancer, and Singer

Rita Moreno is one of two people to have won all four of the most prestigious show business awards: the Oscar, the Emmy, the Tony and the Grammy, earning her a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. She has also received dozens of other awards, most notably, the Golden Globe Award, the Golden Apple Award, the Joseph Jefferson Award, and the prestigious Sarah Siddons Award. In 1995, Moreno received a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Moreno was born Rosa Dolores Alverio in Puerto Rico. At five years old, she and her mother moved to New York and at age 13, she had her Broadway debut in "Skydrift" and went on to sign a contract with MGM. From that point on, her career advanced steadily. Moreno made some thirty films early in her career, including Untamed, Seven Cities of Gold, The Lieutenant Wore Skirts, and Garden of Evil. She was also featured in the classic The King and I. It was only after she won an Academy Award for her outstanding performance as “Anita” in West Side Story that she was finally recognized as a major talent.

Moreno has appeared in many regional theatres, and has broken the rigid role of Latino stereotyping, playing diverse roles such as an Irish teacher, and Italian widow, a reformed prostitute, a lady evangelist, an English Lady, and a southern belle.

Moreno has also been the guest star on many television productions. She is proud to have been a featured artist for many years on The Electric Company, the highly regarded educational television program. She starred in her own TV series, the sitcom version of 9 to 5, played opposite Burt Reynolds in B.L Stryker, and appeared in The Top of the Heap. She also appeared as a series regular opposite Bill Cosby on the Cosby Mystery Series.

In 1995 Moreno returned to the New York stage in "Anne Meara's After Play" and "Size Of the World." In the fall of that year, Moreno again won the acclaim of the London audiences when she appeared as “Norma Desmond” in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s "Sunset Blvd." She continues to be kept busy performing concerts across the country as a guest artist with symphony orchestras for their Pops series.

In addition to her film, stage, television and concert careers, Moreno has served on the National Foundation for the Arts and as a commissioner on the President's White House Fellowships.