Rita Moreno to receive SAG’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Posted by Michelle Moquin on January 22nd, 2014
Good morning!
I think it’s time for a new day and another write honoring women. Congratulations Ms. Moreno!
Rita Moreno to receive SAG’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Actor George Chakiris (left), co-directors Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise and actress Rita Moreno show off their Oscars for “West Side Story” in April 1962. Photo: Associated Press
Los Angeles – When Rita Moreno received a call last summer from SAG-AFTRA Co-President Ken Howard, her first thought was that something was wrong.
“I was in the car on my Bluetooth and he said, ‘Rita, This is Ken Howard.’ I said, ‘Why the hell are you calling me? Do I owe dues? What’s going on?’ “
When he got a word in edgewise, Howard told her the reason for the call – Moreno had been chosen the 50th recipient of the SAG Life Achievement Award. Morgan Freeman, who starred with Moreno more than 40 years ago in the classic PBS kids’ series “The Electric Company,” will present her with the award during the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Saturday night.
Stars including Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Stewart, Paul Newman, Betty White and Shirley Temple have received the award. Moreno is the first Latina to earn the honor.
She was speechless when she learned the news. “I said, ‘Let me call you back, I think I’m in shock.’ I stopped the car when I could and I called him back. He said it is an extraordinary honor. I said, ‘You don’t have to tell me anything. It’s the closest thing to getting an Oscar.’ “
Countless awards
Moreno would know something about that. She won an Oscar for her supporting role as the fiery Anita – who could forget her pulsating “America” number? – in 1961′s “West Side Story.” She’s the only Latino to have won an Oscar, a Tony (“The Ritz”), an Emmy (for guest starring on “The Muppet Show” and “The Rockford Files”) and a Grammy (“The Electric Company Album“).
She’s received countless other honors as well, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and National Medal of Arts. She quips that she’s earned so many honors over the years that her mantelpiece is sagging.
Moreno, who lives in the Bay Area and starred in the autobiographical play “Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup” at Berkeley Rep in 2011, is a force of nature whose vitality belies her 82 years. The diminutive actress is outspoken, poignant and funny.
“I have seen her over the years and she’s so positive,” Howard said about Moreno. “She’s had her ups and downs – haven’t we all? – but she has a vibrant personality.”
And she remains a busy working actress. She just finished a run as Fran Drescher‘s mother in the TV Land comedy “Happily Divorced” and appears in the upcoming indie drama “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks” with Gena Rowlands.
Marlon Brando‘s lover
In between her acting assignments, she published her 2013 autobiography, “Rita Moreno: A Memoir,” in which she wrote not only about her career but also about her tempestuous love affair with Marlon Brando, which led to a suicide attempt in 1961. “We became obsessive lovers,” said Moreno of her romance with Brando. She later married cardiologist Leonard Gordon, who died in 2010.
The Puerto Rican-born actress, who has had her SAG card for more than six decades, has struggled over the years to avoid typecasting. It’s been an uphill battle.
As an ingenue under contract to MGM in the early 1950s, she went from what Moreno describes as one “dusky maiden” role to another – she played Polynesian, Thai, Arabian and Indian. She thought of herself as “the house ethnic.”
Moreno laughed at the memory. “I should have had this little kit with a shoe box that had dark Egyptian pancake makeup, two hoop earrings and an ankle bracelet.”
Born Rosita Alverio, Moreno arrived in the Bronx with her mother at the age of 5. As a youngster she performed in nightclubs, and she made her Broadway debut at age 13 in “Skydrift.” Then using her stepfather’s last name of Moreno, she was put under contract to MGM while still a teen. A casting director changed her first name to Rita. The newly named Rita Moreno made her first film for the studio, the Mario Lanza musical “The Toast of New Orleans,” in 1950.
She admitted she “thought twice” about taking these roles but “then always accepted because you know when you are out of work for a month or two months you’d be thinking, ‘Would I get another job?’ I wanted to be in the movies.”
Relentlessly typecast
Moreno thought she would break the typecasting mold when Gene Kelly hired her to play flapper actress Zelda Zanders in the 1952 classic musical “Singin’ in the Rain.” But she went back to playing ethnic characters, including the ill-fated Burmese slave girl Tuptim in the 1956 film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The King and I.” The role may not have stretched her, but she did get to work with the famous and demanding choreographer-director Jerome Robbins, who oversaw the dance sequences.
“He was the one who recommended me for Anita,” she said.
Though Robbins was famously difficult to work with – he was fired from “West Side Story,” which he was choreographing and co-directing with Robert Wise – Moreno thinks of him fondly.
“I do believe I worked with a genius,” she said of Robbins. “If he were alive and said, ‘Rita, would you be interested in doing this?’ I would drop everything.”
*****
Readers: I don’t watch much television these days, so I didn’t see the SAG awards. However, I love bragging about wonderful women. And this is my way of doing it. Thoughts? Blog me.
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
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michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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January 22nd, 2014 at 9:45 am
Mischa, I don’t watch award shows or much TV either but I agree. This and a powerful woman on the front of TIME magazine today, we are making headway…
Howie, please thank CARR for creating such a wonderful life for me, I’m constantly reminded just how different I am and I for one, love it, so tell him I truly appreciate this life (and I’m looking forward to my next life/suit and trip aboard as well). Respectfully, ZL
January 22nd, 2014 at 10:42 am
I watched it already a couple of days ago. She was beautiful.
January 22nd, 2014 at 10:43 am
It is amazing what she had to go through to get what tiny parts they would give to an OTW woman.
January 22nd, 2014 at 10:47 am
66.Anon Anon Anon Says:
January 22nd, 2014 at 9:36 am
Me thinks the only fucking idiots are Calvin Pierce and Steve. How feeble must their minds be not be able to use some letters and a number?
I WILL BE ANONYMOUS IF I WANT TO BE and you will still be my toe jam.
==============================================
Basically you be stupid.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:07 am
I was surprised to learn that in the history of the motion picture industry Moreno was one of only 11 Actors to win all four awards, the Grammy, Oscar, Tony and Emmy. That would have been accomplishment enough for anyone.
But to my astonishment she is the only one of those to have added three other huge awards including the highest award our nation can give a civilian, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
You go girl.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:09 am
Why is you fucking OTWs are always whining about being treated as less that white folks. The bitch is lucky that she got to work with white people. I know she had to suck a lot of dick to get those parts.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:11 am
I have always love her performances. I too wish she had been given a better opportunity to show the full range of her talents.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:14 am
Face it anon#66. It takes less than an idiot to make up an alias. Before you concoct a bit of prose to post here, kick strain that pea brain of yours and come up with a handle. If that takes too much of your thinking ability, then we are none the loss for it.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:15 am
Michelle, if I were a man, I’d want to sleep with you too.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:18 am
You carpet munchers make me want to puke. My sister stole my best friend from me when I was a teenager. She gave up muff burgers 10 years later to steal my fiancee.
10 years later she left him broken hearted to run off with his sister. There has to be a oven not being used somewhere for your kind.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:21 am
anon,anon, anon: is that your way of saying you were the other two anons also. That makes you a ????? Let see, does three idiots make a moron. No I got it. You are an imbecile.
How much of an effort is it to make it easier for the rest of us to address your posts?
Must be a fucking bitch.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:23 am
Greta#10, why is it that everybody that has a beef with someone has to use the holocaust reference? It is just not right.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:25 am
All this pent up hostility. It must be a slow day. Get off 66.anon’s back. He is entitled to use what ever alias he desires.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:26 am
Fuck you Levi, and the jew mongrel mule you rode in on.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:27 am
Hey, anon#66, since you can’t think of an alias, I’ve done it for you. How about Idiot?
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:30 am
You idiots are becoming bashers. Leave anon#66 alone. I agree Zachary. It must be a slow day. No one seems to have anything to do but rag on others.
How about saying something nice like George,WN I bet your father’s breath don’t stink that much.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:31 am
Ditto that sentiment Levi. I say round up the insensitive bastards and gas them all.
January 22nd, 2014 at 11:33 am
Back to topic everyone. I would loved to have been around in the casting couch days. I would have put it to that puerto rican all day long.
January 22nd, 2014 at 1:07 pm
Is that a better moniker than anon? I say leave the fucking anonomous alone, if that is how this person wants to sign on, let them. You all sound like Nazis, trying to force someone to use some other moniker, and making such an issue over it. Right, Boo Boo!
January 22nd, 2014 at 1:32 pm
Right-on Yogi. Why isn’t anyone complaining about this blogs NO.1 anonomous comentator?
ANONZ? He must be just as stupid as any other anonomous blogger? Unable to think of a real name to use. I think he is a faggot, but alas, I spot a picinic basket.
January 22nd, 2014 at 1:48 pm
MZ Fed//^
January 21st, #31 2014 at 1:04 pm
This notice is to ask any who may have seen; Wopre^/7; U/Lar-7; 11N/7; IY5213; L7^43; Fed/6^-; 11N/7; D48//9c; YKo//-11N/7; and Federation/^/
Carr has sent their craft to the oTr0 Galaxy. It is located close to the end of the Known Universe. It will take them 193 million of their looped time to return to the outer rim of the Milky Way which was where they were when Carr sent them to oTr0.
How do we return them to somewhere inhabited without shedding more blood?
I will ask Carr for a dependable return.
It takes a lot for these warriors to learn to just retreat and admit defeat.
I will see what can be done even though I will not be spoken to any more by the ships who made a pact to leave me alone.
What can be done by Carr can be undone. This is me reaching out to those in danger. I will try to lend a hand.
HOIWIE
January 22nd, 2014 at 3:24 pm
BooBoo you are an ass. Leave Anonz alone. You are just another jealous tiny prick hoping to be somebody.
January 22nd, 2014 at 3:31 pm
Howie I will say what others cannot.
If any innocent motherships can be restored, thank you for the extended kindness.
PrP
January 22nd, 2014 at 5:00 pm
To the Federation RE: Missing Ships:
Now that they know there is nowhere in the Universe they can escape from Carr, I will gladly have Carr return them to their original starting point within a short time of my Posting on MM Blog.
All I ask for in return is a simple acknowledgement that they were returned unharmed.
HOWIE
January 22nd, 2014 at 5:54 pm
why don’t you all just grow up
January 23rd, 2014 at 10:47 am
Marci #25 Today:
Who are you referring to “Grow Up”? Certainly not the previous 3 comments.