Rita Moreno

April 29, 2013
Most famous as Anita in West Side Story, Moreno, now 81, shares her life story in this candid memoir spanning her unceremonious childhood arrival from Puerto Rico to her decades-long career in show business. Born Rosita Alverio in Juncos, Puerto Rico, Moreno gets a rude awakening when in 1936 her single mother moves her to New York City. She finds a passion for singing and dancing while her mother looks for a new husband. Soon, Hollywood knocks on her door. Moreno gives the "Old Hollywood" studio system a long, honest look: she receives her stage name from a studio executive, she is regularly sent out on arranged "dates" with young actors, is made to attend a "troll-and-starlet" mixer with studio funders, and romances several celebrities of her time. In an era when actresses were rampantly "pretending to be ethnicities they obviously not," Moreno is cast again and again as the "hot Latin spitfire" when she was a "reliable, hardworking actor always in search of a better part." There is no question that Moreno's career wound its way through an interesting era; the memoir is a capably composed, entertaining read for anyone with a pre-existing interest in Moreno or 1950s Hollywood.

Starred review from May 15, 2013

One of a handful of performers to have achieved EGOT status (by having won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards), Moreno here presents a story that evolves from her hardships as a young Puerto Rican woman in New York in the 1930s to her struggle for fulfilling roles in the Hollywood of the 1950s and finally to success, as well as a happy marriage and motherhood. Moreno describes her frustrations with roles as a "general ethnic" early in her career, the sexism of Eisenhower's America, her sometimes tempestuous romances with Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Elvis Presley, and critic Kenneth Tynan, and brief but insightful portraits of many of the luminaries with whom she has worked, such as choreographer-director Jerome Robbins. Moreno provides a dramatic, heartfelt reading, underscoring the pathos and joys of her highs and lows. VERDICT Highly recommended for all collections, especially those concerned with immigrant experiences and women's studies. [The Celebra: Penguin hc was a New York Times best seller.--Ed.]--Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr. Lib.

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