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R MARK HILL; RIGHT: LOOMIS DEAN/TIME & LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES ita Moreno learned how to act at a very young age. In her autobiography, Rita Moreno, A Memoir, she describes how a serious, life-threatening bout with chicken pox that sent her to a New York hospital at age 5 started it all. She had to become a "spitfire" to hide how scared she was feeling. "At that moment, I [knew] I've got to pretend to be somebody I'm not," she writes. "This idea lasts through my whole life: I always play a part." From that scared girl in a hospital room, Moreno persevered and her career blossomed. Along the way, she became the only Hispanic performer to win all four major entertainment awards: the Oscar, two Emmys, a Tony and a Grammy, as well as the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Arts. Now, Moreno can add the SAG Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment to her list. The groundbreaking actor, singer, dancer, author and educator, who turns 82 on Dec. 11, is the 50th recipient of SAG-AFTRA's highest tribute, given annually to an actor who fosters the "finest ideals of the acting profession." "She is an extraordinarily versatile, talented and generous actor whose career is notable for its courageous choices and for the breadth, depth and quality of her many demanding and commanding roles," SAG-AFTRA President Ken Howard said of Moreno, who will be feted during the SAG Awards on Jan. 18. Born Rosita Dolores Alverio in Puerto Rico in 1931, at age 5, Moreno and her mother, a seamstress, moved to New York to live with relatives. While still a child, the young Rosita began dance lessons, which led to entertaining departing troops with the USO, performing in radio plays and dubbing English-language films into Spanish. Moreno made her Broadway debut at just 13 in Skydrift, starring Eli Wallach. After making her film debut in the 1950 reform school drama So Young So Bad, MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer envisioned Moreno as a "Spanish Elizabeth Taylor" and signed the teen to a contract. Early film roles showcasing her beauty and sex appeal got Moreno noticed. A 1954 photo shoot that was supposed to focus on a TV series pilot starring Ray Bolger instead landed Moreno on the cover of LIFE magazine, with the provocative headline "Rita Moreno: An Actress's Catalog of Sex and Innocence." It drew the attention of 20th Century Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck, who signed her to her second studio contract. Moreno's work in film is vast — spanning more than six decades — and includes working with some of the most respected names in the entertainment industry. Although early roles sometimes found her typecast as an exotic ethnic beauty, Latina spitfire or Native American maiden, Moreno has since broken through This 1954 LIFE cover propelled Moreno's career. the stereotypes many times. At Fox, Moreno was featured as the tragic Tuptim in the classic The King and I (1956), speaking in what she came to call her "universal ethnic accent." She's also been cast as an Italian (Carlo's Wake, 1999) and recently played Fran Drescher's mother on TV Land's Happily Divorced. The King and I marked Moreno's first film with choreographer Jerome Robbins, who later cast her in West Side Story, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1962. Still one of the industry's busiest stars, Moreno will next be seen in the film version of Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks. On stage, she's headlined shows from Damn Yankees to The Miracle Worker to Gypsy. Her Tony award came for her 1975 satiric turn as flamboyant, talentless bathhouse singer Googie Gomez in Broadway's The Ritz, a role she reprised for the film version in 1976. On television, Happily Divorced is only the latest in a long roster of TV performances dating back to the early 1950s and continuing throughout her career. A six-time Emmy nominee, she won her first of the Television Academy's honors in 1977 for one of her many guest appearances on The Muppet Show. The following year, she earned a second Emmy for her guest performance on The Rockford Files. Moreno doesn't stop at acting, however. Her 1972 Grammy honored her performance on The Electric Company Album, based on the long-running PBS children's literacy television series in which she co-starred with Bill Cosby and Morgan Freeman. Moreno is that iconic talent whose versatility has shown through her body of work. She also has used her fame to inspire others. She realized after her 1962 Oscar win that being a public figure could give voice to important causes and was one of the Hollywood luminaries to take part in the historic march on Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963. Throughout her career, she has involved herself with many civic, cultural and charitable organizations and events supporting important causes such as racial equality, hunger, early childhood education, higher education for minority students and health issues, including HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, heart disease and diabetes. A list of Moreno's accomplishment could take up a whole book, and it does in her 2013 New York Times bestseller Rita Moreno, A Memoir. As she reflects on all she discloses in the book, Moreno writes that she sees her life now in her 80s "in full dimension." "Staying active and persevering is part and parcel of the character of a performer," she writes. "You always have to be able to get up, dust yourself off and move forward." SAGAFTRA.org 40-47_rita_v9.indd 41 | Fall 2013 | SAG-AFTRA 41 11/14/13 3:22 PM