IT’S DIFFICULT to imagine a more gifted performer than Rita Moreno, or a more highly decorated cultural figure. Tedious as I find the modern obsession with intersectionality, it is nevertheless factually correct to say that Moreno was the first woman of Hispanic origin to receive an Academy Award, for her performance as Anita in the movie West Side Story (1961). She is also the third person to become a member of the EGOT club, those elite performers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award. She is multilingual, can sing, dance and act to the highest standard, and her comedy timing is immaculate, as I discovered when I first saw the movie version of The Ritz (1976), a comic farce which I have watched many times, largely to see her Tony-winning performance as a cabaret singer in a bathhouse, of which more later.
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