Rita Moreno turns 82

Anne Marie here with some happy news: It's Rita Moreno's birthday! The Puerto Rican showbiz legend has a list of awards as long as her gorgeous legs, and soon she's going to add to it! As Nathaniel reported earlier, the Screen Actors Guild is adding the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award to her much-deserved accolades in January.

In addition to being the third Triple Crown winner (Emmy, Tony, Oscar) and one of twelve EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony), Rita Moreno has had an absolutely fascinating career for its depth and diversity. She's said that her success in West Side Story was actually a double-edged sword, after winning an Oscar in 1962 for her firey performance as Anita, most of the film roles offered to her were as the token minority. As a result, she refused to appear in film for another seven years. Moreno instead turned to television and theater. As part of the cast of The Electric Company (along with a very young Morgan Freeman), Moreno won her Grammy in 1972. In 1975, Moreno won a Tony for the play The Ritz. Then she completed her EGOT with two Emmy wins: first in 1977 for The Muppet Show, and again in 1978 for The Rockford Files. But her career didn't stop there. She's done everything from voice work (Carmen Sandiego in Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?) to TV Drama (Oz), and even an occasional Law And Order episode in the past few years. One thing she's never been in is a rut.

Today in honor of Rita's birthday, here are clips from her EGOT winning performances.

Emmy: The Muppet Show (1977)

Grammy: The Electric Company (1972)

Oscar: Anita in West Side Story (1961)

And finally her incredible Tony acceptance speech for The Ritz (1975)

What's your favorite performance by Miss Moreno?

Rita! Rita! Rita!

Rita made the cover of "Life" in 1954 Congratulations to "Anita" herself, Rita Moreno. The EGOT winner, West Side Story MVP, and showbiz legend will be honored with the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award this coming January at the SAG Awards Ceremony live on TNT and TBS on Saturday, Jan. 18, 2014. Unlike the Academy Awards (for shame) the Screen Actors Guild still understands the importance of honoring the giants of showbiz history each year on their broadcast, bless them.

Rita was the third actor to win the coveted "Triple Crown" (Tony, Emmy, Oscar) and coincidentally also the third performer to manage an "EGOT" (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony). What's most impressive about both achievements is that the awards were spread out over two decades and came for entirely different things (it's possible, after all, to win Grammys and Oscars for the same film and theoretically possible to win Emmys for performing on a Tony Awards show ;). This indicates true staying power and a lovely capacity to evolve. And, in Rita's case, she did this in an industry that was notoriously difficult for actresses of color to navigate. It still is to some degree but less so thanks to people like Rita. 

The Puerto Rican triple threat first made waves via movie musicals -- Singin' in the Rain (1952), The King and I (1954), West Side Story (1961, Oscar) -- but maintained her fame through work on stage (The Ritz won her the Tony in '75), and television in such memorable shows as The Muppet Show (Emmy),  Electric Company (Grammy), HBO's Oz and so on and so on. Children's Television, Immortal Musicals, and Racy Maximum-Security Drama; that's some range! And she's still working. She recently wrapped filming on a little movie called Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks which co-stars other wonderful older actresses like Gena Rowlands and Jacki Weaver. 

Now about the award... while my personal preference is to give lifetime achievement and honorary prizes to people who haven't logged a lot of hours holding golden statues up in triumph, we all know this is not how Hollywood works. They love a winner so you have a lot better shot getting a lifetime achievement for your career if you've already won prizes for that career over the years and don't need the lifetime honor for anyone to remember you. In this case we don't mind so much since Rita is a truly special figure and breakthrough in Hollywood history. Bring this on.

Rita celebrating WSS's 50th anniversary a couple of years back

Anita's gonna get her kicks,  SAG Nii-iiii-iiiight ♩ She'll have a private little mix, SAG Nii-iiii-iiight

Tell us how much you love Rita in the comments. You know you do. 

Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks

Variety recently reported that Rita Moreno had joined the cast of the comedy Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks. It's not uncommon for famous plays to be made into movies but this one affords us the rare opportunity to see three famous actresses we just don't see anymore strutting their stuff . In addition to Oscar winning Moreno, the one and only Ann-Margret will appear and acting icon and still Oscarless Gena Rowlands has the lead role of a retiree who hires a dance instructor (Cheyenne Jackson) to teach her. Cheyenne's been tweeting from Hungary where they start filming today!

Regarding the plot: As you may have guessed this pair's relationship starts out thorny but deepens. Dancing Miss Daisy? 

The play has been performed across the Globe (you can see a past gallery of pairings here). It'll be interesting to see if Cheyenne & Gena have the kind of big screen chemistry you'd need to pull something like this off or if it'll turn out to have more or a made-for-television filler programming feel. But I'm all in with this cast even if when I first heard of it I thought suddenly of that forgotten Liza Minnelli film Stepping Out when she teaches a bunch of Hopeless Students to tap dance so that they could each overcome their screenplay problem and everyone could live have a happy character arc. Good luck everyone!

Linkology

Details our friend Kurt interviewed Stoker baddie Matthew Goode
Salon on the depiction of Hitchcock's misogyny and voyeurism in recent biopics
Yahoo I missed this incredible make you feel super old news: Ralph Macchio is now as old as Pat Morita was inThe Karate Kid (1984). 

Guardian celebrates the worst mothers in film history from Now Voyager through Suddenly Last Summer to The Others - pretty solid choices among this collection of 10
Cinema Blend Danny Boyle apparently not interested in being the next James Bond director
/Film collects reactions to the first 30 minutes of Star Trek Into Darkness, shown in rough cut format
Awards Daily the press release for Black Nativity, a new Kasi Lemmons picture starring Angela Bassett, Jennifer Hudson and Forest Whitaker. Ooh, I hope it's good. On other note: how weird is it that Angela Bassett is the only member of that trio without an Oscar? 
NPR interview Rita Moreno on her career in musicals, movies and tv and her Oscar win...

I was sure that Judy Garland would probably win, because she was up for Judgment [at] Nuremburg. It was a straight role, not a musical. And I was so amazed and so surprised. Never even dreamed of doing a just-in-case little speech — 'and I want to thank Robert Wise and Jerry Robbins' — nothing! I didn't even work on anything like that, so when I got up there I did this memorable nonspeech. I said, 'I don't believe it!' And there's this pause, and then I say, 'Good lord.' And then I'm trying to think of something, and then I finally say, 'I leave you with that!'

I ran into the wings and I started to cry."

Hemlock Grove trailer

There's a lot of horror-themed tv shows on the way (this, Psycho-inspired The Bates Motel, and Hannibal) are you a Yes on any of them? Or perhaps a No or Maybe So