Rita Moreno

Bush. Patrick died suddenly from a heart seizure on the day before her 81st birthday, at Laguna Beach, California. In June 2004, she became the first Hispanic to be awarded the "Presidential Medal of Freedom" by President George W. Starring George Segal as Sam Spade Jr., forced to continue his father's work, and to keep his increasingly sarcastic secretary, the film attempted to turn its revered predecessor into a comedy, and was a box office failure. Rita Moreno became the first Puerto Rican to have been awarded the Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Grammy's. Her final film role was a reprise of her Effie Perine character in a reworking of the Sam Spade story titled The Black Bird (1975). Rita Moreno's real contribution has been her ability to transcend the discriminatory practices of Hollywood and set a precedent for hispanic actors to be recognized by talent rather than ethnicity. Among her other films are Now, Voyager (1942), Mrs Parkington (1944), Mildred Pierce (1945), Caged (1950), There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), Vertigo (1958), Auntie Mame (1958), Pillow Talk (1959), and Summer and Smoke (1961).

Rita Moreno has participated in more than 50 productions, combining her television, movie and theatrical works. As Effie Perine, the loyal and quick-thinking secretary of Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade, Patrick created one of her most enduring film characterisations. During the late 1990s, she gained exposure to a new generation of viewers as she played a Catholic nun trained as a psychologist in the popular HBO series, Oz. Over the next several years she played numerous supporting roles, without attracting much attention until she appeared in The Maltese Falcon (1941). series. She remained in Hollywood, and appeared in Border Cafe (1937). She also made appearances in the Rockford Files T.V. Her disappointments continued when she was considered and then rejected for the lead role in Stella Dallas in favour of Barbara Stanwyck.

Moreno's popularity grew even more in the 1970s when she appeared on the PBS series The Electric Company and the Muppet Show. Patrick had made her film debut in 1929 but since that time had not appeared in a single film, and RKO Studios were reluctant to allow an unknown actress to take a part in a film which they were beginning to realise had great potential. Moreno also appeared in "Singing in the Rain" (1952) and Tennessee Williams "Summer and Smoke". Eventually the part was rewritten and split from a single character into two characters which were played by Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers. Rita Moreno married Doctor Lenny Gordon on June 18, 1965, who still remains her husband and manager, and later had a daughter, Fernanda Gordon. Her success in Stage Door (1937) led her to Hollywood to reprise her role in the film version. Moreno was the second person in history to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award, the first and only Hispanic entertainer to have done so. For more than a decade she was constantly employed and established herself as a popular actress.

Moreno gained fame and an "Oscar" as the best supporting actress that year. Born in New York, New York, Patrick began acting on Broadway in 1924. Finally, in 1961 she landed the role of "Anita" in Robert Wises film "West Side Story", an epic film about the lives of the Puerto Ricans in New York during the 1950's. Lee Patrick (November 22, 1901 – November 21, 1982) was an American theater and film actress. For the next ten years Rita played roles in movies which she felt degrading. Her difficulties in establishing a career as a leading actress were often attributed to a long standing fued Patrick had with gossip columnist Louella Parsons, about whom Patrick's husband, a journalist, had written very unfavourably. She had her first Broadway role by the time she was thirteen, which caught the attention of Hollywood talent scouts. Shaving a decade off her age was a decision she made early in her career, and at the time of her death, many of her friends believed that she was in her early seventies.

When she was eleven years old Rita lent her voice to Spanish-language versions of American films. After her death it was discovered that she was ten years older than she had ever revealed. At the age of five Rita and her mother moved to New York. Rosita Dolores Alverio (b.December 11, 1931), born in Humacao, Puerto Rico is better known as Rita Moreno, an actress who has achieved fame both in Hollywood and Broadway.