Rita Moreno on her book tour
The fiftieth recipient of the award, designed to recognize achievement and humanitarian accomplishment, will be the 81-year Latina legend…and it couldn’t happen to a nicer woman.
Every year, SAG-AFTRA gives a special award to an actor who epitomizes the “finest ideals of the acting profession.” In January 2014, the newly unified organization will present that award to Puerto Rico-born Rita Moreno.
Perfect.
“She is an extraordinarily versatile, talented and generous actor whose career is notable for its courageous choices and for the breadth, depth and quality of her many demanding and commanding roles,” said SAG-AFTRA co-president Ken Howard, SAG-AFTRA co-president said of Moreno in a statement. “She is a magnificent actor, and I am honored to join all SAG-AFTRA members in recognizing the incomparable Rita Moreno.”
Awards are not exactly new territory for Rita. She already is one of only 11 actors to have earned the legendary “E.G.O.T.” combination: professionals who have won The Big Five: an Oscar, a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmy (or, in her case, two Emmys). She’s also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of the Arts and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1995. (She’s also the only Latina in the club.)
Rita and original West Side Story
cast members ©1999 Angela María Ortíz S.
Listing her accomplishments would take all day–a very pleasant day, but a long day–beginning with her first appearance in front of the camera more than 60 years ago, as Rosita Moreno. Sometimes Latino, sometimes Anglo, always emphatically Rita, everyone remembers at least some of the highlights: West Side Story, Singin’ in the Rain, Oz, The Electric Company, The Rockford Files, Cane, and most recently her role as Fran Drescher’s mother in Happily Divorced. And that barely scratches the surface.
Over the decades, Rita has met everyone, worked with everyone, knows everyone. We’ve talked about here frequently here at Se Fija!; a while back we offered this revealing bit of video from The Best of Warner Bros. Musicals.
Congratulations to Rita Moreno. The 20th Annual SAG Awards will be broadcast live on TNT and TBS on January 18, 2014. Rita will be there…and so will we.
