Wepa! The five reasons we love legendary actress Rita Moreno

1. SHE’S AN EGOT!!!
A what? EGOTs are artists who have what are considered by many to be the four major American entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. Moreno actually has two Emmys. And a Golden Globe (but that’s from the foreign press, so not an EGOT qualifier).

Only 12 artists are members of this exclusive club and Moreno is practically the founding member. The original EGOT was composer Richard Rodgers, in 1962. It wasn’t until 1977 that anyone else pulled off the four-award win: Moreno and another phenomenal legend, Helen Hayes.

The nine others are Sir John Gielgud, Audrey Hepburn, John Gielgud, Audrey Hepburn, Marvin Hamlisch, Jonathan Tuck, Mel Brooks, Mike Nichols, Whoopi Goldberg, Scott Rudin, and Robert Lopez.

2. WEST SIDE STORY
It was a groundbreaking film for a groundbreaking star that earned her an historic Academy Award. That appearance on Broadway at age 13 in Skydrift caught the eye of Hollywood agents. In the 1950s she appeared in Gene Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain and the movie adaptation of the blockbuster KIng and I, a timeless musical that just won the Tony for Best Revival.

In 1961, it was another adaptation from Broadway that landed her the role originated on stage by Chita Rivera: Anita, the sister of Maria, the Puerto Rican girl who falls for Tony, a European American, in the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim musical, West Side Story. It was a modern day re-tooling of Romeo & Juliet on many levels that included several “if only” moments in which individual decisions and actions lead to heartbreaking tragedy. And it was set on the hardscrabble streets of New York where prejudice and real ethnic tensions were playing out.

Moreno won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her star turn as Anita, who, like Moreno’s mom. was a seamstress. Moreno was the only actual Latina in main triumvirate of Puerto Rican characters: Anita, Maria (Natalie Wood, a Russian-American), and Bernardo (George Chakiris, son of Greek immigrants).

IMDB will give you a sense of the amazing list of movies that followed — and keep coming — since her Oscar.

3. ELECTRIC COMPANY
Moreno gives, gives, and gives some more. She’s tremendously dedicated to the importance of education and that much-ballyhooed concept of ‘Leave no child behind.’ That’s the reason she signed on to star in PBS’ Electric Company, which lasted six seasons, ending its run in 1977 but living on in repeats. The show emphasized reading and grammar for a post-Sesame Street, elementary school audience. Speaking of Sesame Street, one of her Emmys came for her work on The Muppet Show in 1977. The other was for The Rockford Files.

4. HER AMAZING MEMOIR

In 2011, a year after the death of her cardiologist husband, Leonard Gordon, with whom she had one daughter, Fernanda Luisa Gordon, her book , “Rita Moreno: A Memoir” was released, hitting the New York Times bestseller list.

Talk about a tell all! Moreno, as she does on stage and screen, the big one and the small, let it all hang out, including her eight-year tortuous affair with Marlon Brando when he was about the hunkiest stud in Hollywood, and her pas de deux with Elvis. Wow.

Moreno and Brando met on the set of the film, “Desiree,” in 1954. He was 30. She: 22.

“Just meeting him that first day sent my body temperature skyrocketing as though I had been dropped into a very hot bath, and I went into a full-body blush. It was the sort of rush that inspires poetry and songs,” she wrote.

The affair didn’t end well. Brando was a serial womanizer, Moreno went through a botched abortion, and, after taking a handful of sleeping pills to kill herself, woke from a coma and decided to leave him behind.

5. SHE CONSTANTLY INSPIRES

She has long fought against stereotypical roles for Latino actors and her accomplishments have inspired her fellow performers and her fans on too many levels to count.

Among them, “Jane the Virgin” star Gina Rodriguez, who pushed to have the star appear in the hit television series.

“Apparently, Gina’s always wanted to work with me. Apparently I symbolize a lot of wonderful things to her,” a flattered Moreno told Entertainment Weekly .

Moreno is now a door buster for older actresses, who often feel cast aside in Hollywood. She and the great Gena Rowlands, 84. attacked the issue head on when they appeared together in last year’s “Six dance lessons in six weeks.”

John A. Oswald is editor-at-large of Metro.US.