The Puerto Rican-born star of the first West Side Story movie reflects on her life, career and traumas in this warm documentary salute
This televisual but still touching documentary tribute to actor Rita Moreno, who turns 90 this month, is released in the UK as a warm-up act to Steven Spielberg’s new film version of West Side Story coming out next month. Moreno is probably most famous for playing Anita in the 1961 film version of the musical, in a zesty, broad performance in which she whips the voluminous folds of her lilac party dress while singing America. It was a turn that earned her the best supporting actress Oscar, and she will be in Spielberg’s new version, too, but Rita-as-Anita in the lilac dress will probably remain the image that most often comes to mind when her name is mentioned.
Director Mariem Pérez Riera celebrates a career that had a number of interesting twists and turns even if she never rose very high in the film firmament after her big moment. Instead, Moreno broadened out and performed on stage and on television: she appeared in the 70s opposite Morgan Freeman in the kids’ show The Electric Company and, from the late 90s to early 00s, played a nun in the prison drama Oz. Most recently, she found acclaim in the 2017 reboot featuring a Cuban-American family of the 70s sitcom One Day at a Time.