However, despite her talent, roles commensurate with that talent were not forthcoming in the 1960s. Director Robert Wise, who was chosen to co-direct West Side Story (1961) (the film version of the smash Broadway musical, a retelling of William Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" with the warring Venetian clans the Montagues and Capulets re-envisioned as Irish/Polish and Puerto Rican adolescent street gangs, the Jets and the Sharks), cast Moreno as "Anita", the Puerto Rican girlfriend of Sharks' leader Bernardo, whose sister Maria is the piece's Juliet. Singin' in the Rain (1952) and The King and I (1956). Among the better pictures she earned featured roles in were the classic Because of a dearth of decent material, Moreno had to play roles in movies that she considered degrading. If not cast as a Hispanic pepper pot, she could rely on being cast as another "exotic", such as her appearance on Father Knows Best (1954) as an exchange student from India. It was sexpot time, a stereotype that would plague her throughout the decade. The cover of the March 1, 1954, edition of "Life Magazine" featured a three-quarters, over-the-left-shoulder profile of the young Puerto Rican actress/entertainer with the provocative title "Rita Moreno: An Actresses' Catalog of Sex and Innocence". In 1950, she was signed by MGM, but the studio dropped her option after just one year. Although she would not appear again on Broadway for almost two decades, Rita Moreno, as she was billed in the play, had arrived professionally. Less than a month before her 14th birthday on November 22, 1945, she made her Broadway debut in the play "Skydrift" at the Belasco Theatre, costarring with Arthur Keegan and a young Eli Wallach. At age 11, she landed her first movie experience, dubbing Spanish-language versions of US films. From the age of nine, she performed as a professional dancer in New York night clubs. Rita's professional career began before she reached adolescence. Her mother moved to New York City in 1937, taking Rita with her while leaving her reportedly unfaithful husband and Rita's younger brother behind. She was born Rosita Dolores Alverío in the hospital in Humacao, Puerto Rico on Decem(but raised in nearby, smaller Juncos, which had no hospital), to seamstress Rosa María (Marcano) and farmer Francisco José "Paco" Alverío. Rita Moreno is one of the very few performers to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony and a Grammy, thus becoming an EGOT.
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