Rita Moreno is most famous for her starring roles in musicals such as Singin' in the Rain
and West Side Story — but can you guess the incredible distinction she's the only living
artist to achieve? Keep watching to find out more about this remarkable Hollywood star.
Rita Moreno was born Rosa Dolores Alverio on December 11th, 1931.
She lived on a farm in Puerto Rico with her family until the age of 5,
after which she and her mother relocated to New York City. Shortly after arriving in the
Big Apple, Rosa took dancing lessons and began working in entertainment.
As a young girl, she was regularly bullied and insulted due to her Hispanic heritage, and dancing
provided one way to escape from this. Of course, her love of performing would later pay off.
When she was just 11, Rosa began dubbing Spanish versions of English-speaking movies.
She landed her first Broadway role in Skydrift when she was 13,
and that's when Hollywood executives began to take notice. By the age of 15, she had chosen
to discontinue her formal education, and at just 16 she was supporting her family financially.
Rosa signed a contract with MGM in 1950 at the age of 18, and it was then that she changed her
name to Rita Moreno. Her first film roles included The Toast of New Orleans and Singin' in the Rain.
While Moreno had no problem landing film roles,
she quickly realized that she had become typecast for her Puerto Rican roots. Instead
of having her choice of parts, she was often presented with strictly ethnic roles in movies.
"I had to talk like this, because it was always a Hispanic person."
Despite being Hispanic, casting directors often offered her characters with Hawaiian,
Native American, Egyptian, and Filipino roots.
Moreno even played a Burmese character in 1956's The King and I. In 2021, Moreno told USA Today:
"I wanted to turn the parts down,
but that's all that was offered and I had to make a living. I was kind of stuck."
Her big break finally came in 1961, when she played Anita in the big-screen version
of West Side Story. Moreno won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for the role,
and in 2021 she even took a different part in the Steven Spielberg-directed remake of the film.
On August 28th, 1963, civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a
Dream" speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom — and Rita Moreno basically had
a front row seat at the event. The actor was sitting on the Lincoln Monument when she heard
him utter those now-unforgettable words. In a 2020 interview, she told Entertainment Tonight:
"We were sitting literally no more than 15 feet away from Dr. King."
Singer Harry Belafonte had invited Rita and other stars to attend
because he wanted to show King that people in the entertainment industry supported his cause.
Rita said that looking back at the event still gives her goosebumps.
"It was so exciting, and I remember looking at the back of me,
and there were thousands and thousands of people."
Moreno committed herself to remembering every detail of that day because she knew
it was a critical moment in history. Calling the experience "extraordinary," she recalled she felt
less alone at that moment, because those around her also had to deal with racism like she did.
Many actors have been pressured into giving sexual favors in order to land particular
roles through the years, and Rita Moreno, sadly, was no exception.
When she was just a teenager, Moreno was sexually assaulted by her agent. She later told The
Guardian that she felt she couldn't leave him at the time because she thought he was the only one
who had her back in Hollywood. When she ran into him decades later, she recalled that she, quote,
"went white." Moreno said she inexplicably agreed to have lunch with him and his wife,
and her former agent even had the audacity to tell her that he wished he'd gotten her pregnant.
This wasn't the only time that the actor dealt with predatory men in the industry.
Columbia Pictures co-founder Harry Cohn acted in a particularly predatory manner upon meeting her,
which left her feeling dumbfounded and horrified. She was also harassed by 20th Century Fox exec
Buddy Adler, who reportedly called her constantly and essentially stalked her for a time.
Rita Moreno has had several romantic relationships through the years,
including one particularly devastating tryst with film icon Marlon Brando, whom she met when she was
just 22 years old. The pair starred together in Desiree, in which Brando, then aged 30,
played Napoleon. Morena was instantly smitten with the leading man and, according to her memoir, went
into a, quote, "full-body blush" when she first encountered him. She described the meeting as "the
sort of rush that inspires poetry and songs," and soon fell madly and deeply in love with Brando.
Unfortunately, Brando was also a notorious philanderer who didn't exactly take monogamy
seriously. He cheated on Rita frequently and even fathered children with other women
while he and the actor were still seeing each other. Rita was heartbroken by his betrayals,
but she felt unable to leave him as her continued obsession with the star had yet to abate.
The pair eventually split up for good around 1961, but they later appeared together in the 1968 film
The Night of the Following Day. Brando tried to reconnect romantically with Rita,
but she turned him down, and eventually their relationship evolved into friendship.
For a while, Rita Moreno planned to get back at Marlon Brando for his infidelities by attempting
to make him jealous. During a 2021 interview on The View, the actor revealed that Elvis
Presley reached out to her while she was struggling in her relationship with Brando.
She had recently found another woman's lingerie in the house, which infuriated her.
Then she received a phone call from Presley's agent, Colonel Parker,
who said the singer had expressed an interest in meeting her. Moreno's response?
"And I thought of those panties and I said, 'yes I would.'"
However, sparks didn't fly between Moreno and Presley. She described him
as a "sweet" yet "boring" man — although her decision didn't sit well with Brando,
who got so angry he yelled and threw chairs across the room. Upon reflection, Moreno now
believes that her relationship with Brando was unhealthy, suggesting that part of the problem
was that she was looking for both a father figure and a man who would accept her unconditionally.
Just before she decided to leave Marlon Brando, Rita Moreno began filming West Side Story,
which would turn out to be her breakthrough role. However,
she was so distraught by Brando's behavior that she tried to take her own life. She later told
USA Today that she felt humiliated because she allowed Brando to walk all over her, explaining:
"I wanted to get rid of myself because I didn't think I deserved to live."
Fortunately, an assistant found Moreno and took her to the hospital before she
succumbed to the medication. Moreno later recalled that she had wanted
to eliminate the so-called "bad Rita" inside of her. She told The Guardian:
"But it turned out if you're going to kill the bad Rita, you're also going to kill the good one."
This incident was what led her to finally end her relationship with Brando.
Rita Moreno made a huge impression as Anita in West Side Story. In the movie, Anita is strong,
sexy, and self-assured — a woman who Moreno admired and aspired to be like; she was anything
but weak and subservient, which is how Moreno saw herself at the time. Moreno won an Academy Award
for her role in West Side Story, an achievement that boosted her confidence considerably. Finally,
she believed her career was about to flourish. Unfortunately, things didn't quite go as planned.
Moreno ended up on a seven-year hiatus after the movie's release.
She chose to step back because she wasn't offered any good roles,
instead being offered endless projects involving gangs that simply weren't as
good as West Side Story. She kept waiting for better opportunities to come along,
but they never did. And this typecasting continued even when she was in her 60s, in which a casting
agent offered her the role of a Mexican brothel madam. She later told ET how shocked she was that,
despite having won numerous acting accolades, she was still being stereotyped in Hollywood.
Only 16 people in the history of entertainment are counted as
EGOT winners — the name given to those who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar,
and Tony Award. The distinction is not only rare but highly coveted by those in the industry.
What makes it particularly special for Rita Moreno is that she's the only living artist
to have achieved this distinction solely as a performer. She received an Oscar for Best
Supporting Actress in 1962 for her role in West Side Story, and after taking a seven-year break,
returned to acting. In the 1970s, she appeared in The Electric Company, a children's show on
PBS. She also participated in a cast recording for the program and won a Grammy for it in 1972.
Three years later, Moreno appeared in the Broadway production The Ritz,
playing the Puerto Rican singer and dancer Googie Gomez. Her talent earned her a Tony
Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. In 1977, she won an Emmy Award for a guest
appearance on The Muppet Show. At the time, she was just the third person to receive an EGOT,
in addition to composer Richard Rodgers and actress Helen Hayes. Even more impressive,
Moreno won a Peabody Award in 2019 — becoming the first Latino in history to do so.
In her recent documentary, Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It,
Moreno talks candidly about her 45-year marriage to cardiologist Leonard Gordon,
who passed away in 2010. While the couple appeared to be happy and raised a daughter together,
Moreno explained in the film that Leonard was critical of her "raucous" laughter
and had substantial control issues. When he died,
Moreno says that she actually felt relieved. During a Q&A for the documentary, Moreno said:
"We ran quite an extraordinary and successful charade for many years."
While Moreno also said that Leonard was a "wonderful person," they apparently weren't
good together. She stayed by his side while he was sick in the hospital and played the
role of a good wife, but his passing brought a sense of liberation. The day after his death,
she had a glass of wine and went out on her patio. Moreno remembered:
"I sat on the patio, took in the sun and there was this enormous sense of relief."
While Rita Morena has been delighting audiences for years with her film and TV roles,
she spent a good portion of that time unhappy with herself. Today, she credits psychotherapy
with helping her like the person she's become. In her interview with The Guardian, she joked:
"You know, I think I owe an enormous debt to psychotherapy. Without that,
I wouldn’t be the Rita you know and love."
The problems stemmed from childhood, when she was abused and bullied due to her
Puerto Rican descent. She frequently felt unworthy as a result of this,
and it took her years to get over the trauma. Moreno has since revealed that therapy was a long
process, but in the end it helped her become the confident woman she is today. She remembered:
"I went into therapy wanting to get better,
knowing that in some way I had a sickness. And the sickness was Rita hates Rita."
Moreno has lived alone for the past 10 years, but says that she's happy being by herself,
because she finally likes the person who she is — and the woman she has become.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available.
Visit the rape, abuse, and incest national network website or contact RAIN's national helpline at 1800-656-HOPE (4673)