by Nathaniel R
Rita Moreno in her Emmy worthy performance in "One Day at a Time"
Rita Moreno, the beloved octogenarian, EGOT and Triple Crown of Acting winner, and Latina pioneer, is back in a big way. She's doing some of her best work ever on One Day at a Time (the lack of an Emmy nod is just shameful) but we have very good news about a future movie role. She's been cast in the movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights (2020). This will be her first movie musical role in over 50 years!
For those who don't know Moreno's career before West Side Story (1961), it wasn't her first musical...
Though she didn't often like her early roles -- the result of Hollywood's initial inflexibility about how to cast Latin actors -- in her first decade onscreen she made 21 movies and proved she could hop genres with ease -- drama, comedy, westerns, war films, you name it. Musicals were, of course, the most perfect fit.
Rita Moreno was only 20 when Singin' in the Rain (1952) came out
Garden of Evil (1954), one of her two Susan Hayward films
Her early musicals include The Toast of New Orleans (1950), Pagan Love Songs (1950), Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Fabulous Señorita (1952), The King and I (1956), and The Vagabond King (1956). Even when she wasn't in a musical, she was sometimes cast as if she were as in the Susan Hayward western Garden of Evil (1954) in which she plays "cantina singer".
Playing "Tuptim" in The King and I, her first significant role in a huge commercial and Oscar success, boosted her profile. Then of course came the role that put her in the pantheon, "Anita" in West Side Story (1961) which won her a well-deserved Oscar.
Unfortunately there was nowhere to go but down after West Side Story, since how do you top that from the margins of lesser films; Hollywood wasn't offering her lead roles. To the world's immense gratitude, Moreno eventually found her footing again after a post-Oscar drought. Since the 1970s she's worked consistently on TV as a guest star or series regular (Oz, One Day at a Time, Electric Company, a Nine to Five adaptation in the Lily Tomlin role), did a few Broadway shows, and blessed the occasional movie (Carnal Knowledge, Casa de Los Babys, Slums of Beverly Hills, I Like it Like That) with her inimitable charisma. Though she never made another traditional musical after West Side Story she did play a play a musical performer in The Ritz (1976). That screen transfer of her Tony-winning comedy role netted her Globe and BAFTA Best Actress nominations, but alas no second round of Oscar attention.
But it's not hard to imagine that industry recognition coming for In the Heights if the film is good. It's not due in theaters until June 2020 (Rita will 88 years old by the time it comes out) so we know we're getting ahead of ourselves there -- apologies, but we're just so excited.
Rita in The Ritz (1976)
In In the Heights Moreno will play Abuelo Claudia, the woman who raised the show's lead, the bodega owner Usnavi. Anthony Ramos, from Broadway's "Hamilton" and currently on screens as Lady Gaga's bestie in A Star is Born, will play Usnavi. Abuelo Claudia only has two big numbers in the show "Patience and Faith" and "Hundreds of Stories". Is it too much to ask that Lin-Manuel Miranda writes a new song so that Rita can have a third number with which to delight the world?
UPDATE: After all of that we're now being told that she's not attached to the project after all. We hope this is just negotiating stuff and not the end result because it'd be so wonderful to see her do this.