On a summer day in June 1976, actress Rita Moreno found herself on a soundstage in England singing the song “Fever.” She was accompanied by members of the band Dr. Teeth & the Electric Mayhem. The musicians were puppets, with the wildest one being the drummer, Animal. They were taping an episode of Jim Henson’s new family variety show, The Muppet Show. Jim already had a daytime children’s show, Sesame Street, that featured puppets he called “Muppets.” His new show was a weekly, evening show for a major television network.

Sweetums. Kermit the Frog, & Rita (Jim Henson’s Red Book)

Rita had been working with the Muppets since the day a few years earlier when she spotted Jim at a coffee shop in New York. She ran up to him, got down on her knees, kissed his hand, and told him how much she loved the Muppets. She asked if she could be a part of Sesame Street, which she watched every day with her young daughter. She was so determined to work with Jim that she said she would play any role and do it for free. She reminded him that she was in the cast of the Electric Company, which filmed next to Sesame Street, which made scheduling easy.

Jim was shy by nature, but once he got over his embarrassment at the attention, he took Rita up on her offer. After all, she was an award winning movie and Broadway actress. Rita helped out with little girl Muppet voices on Sesame Street, plus was the singing voice behind the treasured “There’s A Hole in the Bucket” skit.

When Jim decided to produce The Muppet Show and feature a different weekly guest star, Rita was up for the challenge. The script called for Rita to sing, dance, and act with the Muppets, making full use of her talent and comedic timing. She did a silly tango in a Muppet café with a beret-wearing adult-size puppet partner. She was on a panel with Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and other Muppets discussing the topic “Is Conversation A Dying Art?” She and Kermit had a heart to heart conversation that was interrupted by a giant hairy Muppet named Sweetums. But the centerpiece of the show was her performance of “Fever.”

Rita’s friend Frank Oz, who she worked with on Sesame Street, was the puppeteer and voice for Animal the drummer. The skit called for Rita to sing, stop and scold Animal, and start singing again. The bass riff of Fever repeats throughout the song, which made keeping her place difficult as she dipped in and out to interact with Animal. One of the stagehands held huge cue cards that tracked how many bars remained in the song for Rita to reference as she performed. When Rita made a mistake, they had to start over from the beginning, because the rhythm made it too hard to edit different takes together.

Rita and Animal (The Muppet Show)

In the scene, Rita’s character, wearing a fancy designer dress and huge wig, takes her song very seriously. In contrast, Animal is behind her drumming to his own beat. The humor is in how frustrated Rita gets as she tries to make Animal stay in line. Rita improvised much of their interaction. She speaks both Spanish and English to him, at one point grabbing his nose and telling him, in Spanish, ‘Look at me when I’m talking to you.’ The song ends with Rita clapping cymbals on Animal’s face and Animal approving the move, saying ‘Ooh! That’s my kind of woman!’

Although Rita was in the fifth Muppet Show filmed, Jim Henson chose her show for the series premiere, which aired on September 20, 1976. Audiences and critics loved the show and Rita’s performance. She was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of “outstanding continuing or single performance by a supporting actress in variety or music.”

Rita with her Second Emmy. She earned the EGOT one year earlier with her Muppet Show Emmy (AP)

Rita won, and with her win, became an EGOT, one of very few entertainers who have won the four major entertainment awards: Emmy (television), Grammy (music), Oscar (movies) and Tony (Broadway). At the time, she was the third person, youngest (at 45) and only Hispanic actor to earn the honor. As of 2020, there are only 16 EGOTs. When she received Peabody Career Achievement Award in 2019, she became one of only three people to be a Peabody “PEGOT.”

The Power of the Wand

Singer/Ventriloquist Darci Lynne is also winning awards with her ability to make puppet characters come alive. In 2017, when Darci was 12, she became the youngest contestant to win America’s Got Talent. Darci and her two puppet co-stars, Petunia and Oscar, won over audiences with their songs and conversation. Since her win, Darci has toured the country with her show and appeared on America’s Got Talent: The Champions, where she finished second.

Darci was very shy when she was little, and her parents entered her in pageants to help her overcome it.  When she met another contestant who was a ventriloquist, she decided she  wanted to try it herself. She asked her parents for a puppet and they gave her one for her 10^th birthday. She started practicing, eventually won some local competitions, and found a great coach who helped her improve her skills and develop her routines.

Her Yellow Brick Road

After a few years on Broadway stages, Rita appeared in her first film, So Young So Bad when she was 19. She appeared in numerous movies after that, but her roles were nearly all the same. She was typecast as the “ethnic girl character,” playing Latin spitfires and Indian maidens in Western movies. In her own words, “I was always barefoot. It was humiliating, embarrassing stuff. But I did it because there was nothing else.”

Rita’s dissatisfaction with her limited roles pushed her to leave her studio, MGM, when she was 23. She signed a new contract with 20^th Century Fox, and believed she had finally broken through when she was cast as Tuptim in The King & I. Tuptim is a fully realized sympathetic character, and Rita had a chance to show her dramatic talent. While the movie and her performance were well received, it didn’t change anything for Rita. Just two years later, Fox ended her contract and encouraged her to quit acting.

In 1961, when she was 29, she auditioned for the role of Anita in the movie adaptation of the popular Broadway musical West Side Story. Rita hadn’t danced professionally in 10 years, but she worked hard to prepare and got the part. West Side Story is based on Romeo & Juliet, but instead of a feuding families in Italy, the conflict is set between white (Jets) and Puerto Rican (Sharks) gangs in New York. Anita, best friend of Maria (the Juliet character) and girlfriend of the Sharks leader, was the kind of role Rita wanted to play: a strong, complicated, and caring person who is an important part of the story.

While Rita was excited for the opportunity to finally bring another well-realized character to the big screen, Hollywood hadn’t changed much. Even as a Puerto Rican playing a Puerto Rican, she ran into prejudice. The makeup artists darkened her face to look more ethnic. When she asked why she couldn’t act with her natural skin color, they suggested that she was racist.

Rita as Anita in West Side Story (Clip from Movie)

Rita shook off the negativity and went to the set every day ready to become Anita. Her efforts were appreciated and she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Rita attended the ceremony with her mom, who was seated right behind her to cheer her on as she became the first Hispanic actor to win an Oscar.

With her Academy Award in hand, Rita decided that she would no longer play stereotypical characters and looked for roles “that had nothing to do with being Hispanic, or at least [let me be] Hispanic with dignity.” But the roles she was offered didn’t change, so she didn’t appear in another movie for seven years. Instead, she acted in local theater productions, married, and had a daughter, Fernanda.

Rita on Broadway in The Ritz (Wikicommons)

Fernanda loved watching Sesame Street, a show produced by the Children’s Television Network. So when CTN asked Rita to join the cast of its new show, The Electric Company, she jumped at the chance, even though many in her industry told her it looked desperate and would hurt her chances at other “mature” roles. Rita was on the show for six seasons, and her trademark ”Hey, you guys!’ yell started each show. She won a Grammy award for the show’s soundtrack in 1972. Her schedule still gave her time to appear on Broadway, and she won a Best Actresss Tony award in 1975 for her role in the musical The Ritz. She now just needed the “E” for her “EGOT.”

Brains, Heart & Courage 

Rita spent her early childhood in Juncos, Puerto Rico. She lived in a village close to the rainforest near her grandparents. She spent her time outdoors in warm sunshine and colorful surroundings. When she was five, her mother divorced her father to start a new life in New York City. She took Rita with her and left Rita’s little brother with their dad.

They moved into an aunt’s 4 room apartment with 10 other people in an area of the Bronx nicknamed Spanish Harlem. Rita and her mom shared an old iron bed with a sagging mattress. The winter she arrived, Rita fell ill with chicken pox and had to be quarantined. Public health officials took her out of the apartment rolled in a sheet like a tootsie roll and she spent weeks in the hospital.

Rita’s mom had a Spanish dancer friend who noticed Rita’s natural talent and asked permission to take Rita to dance class. Rita was 6 when she started dance lessons and was performing in recitals by 7. Rita was the only Spanish speaker at her school and often felt like an outsider. Her mom craved change, and Rita had four different stepfathers growing up. Rita felt more brave when she pretended to be someone else, so started acting and dancing in school assemblies and talent shows.

Rita as Angelina in Skydrift (latina.com)

Rita’s mom worked several odd jobs to support them, and Rita was expected to help. Fortunately, Rita’s dance teacher was Hollywood superstar Rita Hayworth’s uncle, so was well-connected in the entertainment industry. Rita got her first job when she was 11, dubbing American films into Spanish. She started attending auditions and was cast in many radio shows.

At 13, Rita won a role in the Broadway musical Skydrift. She soon dropped out of school to pursue an entertainment career. She performed in shows at nightclubs regularly attended by talent scouts. One scout arranged a meeting between Rita and the studio head of MGM, who  offered her a contract when she was 17. They asked her to change her name to make it more “Hollywood.” She shortened Rosita to Rita and chose her most recent stepfather’s last name: Moreno.

Glinda’s Gallery

Just the Facts

• Rita was born Rosita Dolores Alverio on December 11, 1931 in Humacao, Puerto Rico, but considers her real birthplace to be the nearby village of Juncos.
• Rita was married to Dr. Leonard Gordon for 45 years, until his death in 2010. She has one daughter and two grandsons.
• Rita released her first solo album of pop, jazz and showtunes when she was 68. She released Una Vez Mas, another solo album of Spanish language songs, when she was 83.
• Rita couldn’t attend the Emmy Awards ceremony for her The Muppet Show nomination because she was acting in a play in Milwaukee. She found out she won during intermission. The theater told the audience the news, and when Rita went back on stage, they cheered.
• Rita won a second Emmy in 1978 for a three episode appearance on The Rockford Files.
• Rita has appeared on several television shows, including Oz, Ugly Betty, Cane, and One Day at a Time.
• Rita was the voice of Carmen Sandiego on the PBS show “Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego.”
• Rita is co-producing and acting in the 2020 movie remake of West Side Story.
• Rita’s other awards include: Presidential Medal of Freedom, Kennedy Center Honors, National Medal of Arts, Latin Entertainment Journalists Association Lifetime Achievement Award (now named the Rita Moreno Lifetime Achievement Award), Golden Globe, Joseph Jefferson Award, Sarah Siddons Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• Rita has served on the National Endowment for the Arts, on the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships, and on the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

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