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Dec.19 - Dec.26, 2004 |
The incomparable Rita Moreno
Legendary actress returns to big screen in John Sayles' lates movie Casa de los Babys
By Angela Baldassarre
Originally Published: 2003-09-28
Listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the only female performer to have won all four of the most prestigious show business awards - the Oscar, the Emmy, the Grammy and the Tony - Rita Moreno epitomizes the American entertainer. Singer, actress, and dancer, Puerto Rico-born Moreno (real name Rosa Dolores Alverio) moved to New York at the age of five, and is best remembered for her role as Anita in West Side Story, for which she won the Oscar.
The star of mostly stage during the past two decades with only sporadic movie work, Moreno briefly returned to television recently with a recurring role on HBO's drama series Oz.
But the now the fiery Latina is back on the big screen in John Sayles' Casa de los Babys, which follows six white American women (Darryl Hannah, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lili Taylor, Marcia Gay Harden, Susan Lynch, Mary Steenburgen), all but one over 30, who are impatiently waiting out their lengthy residency requirements in an unidentified South American country before picking up their adoptive babies at an orphanage. Moreno plays bitter and resentful Senora Munez, the owner of the hotel where the women stay, who must support a slacker son.
Tandem talked to the still-stunning 72-year-old Moreno when she was in Toronto recently.
It's so great to see you in a movie again.
"Oh, and it's so great to be in one again, especially a John Sayles movie.
He writes for women so well.
"Does he not? I call him the quiet American. Isn't there something about him that's kind of mythic? The way he looks. He makes me think of Gary Cooper with whom I did a film years ago. He makes me think of him because he's quiet, tall, imposing.
Handsome.
"Oh, I think he's sexy."
Totally. So sexy.
"He would die of embarrassment to hear all of this. He's always wearing shorts. John is always warm - he's hot. He has a kind of body temperature and in the dead of winter... I saw him in his office when I first went to talk to him about the movie, and the man was wearing shorts in New York! He gets hot. What can I say? He's hot." (Laughter)
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