Biografia

Was the first Hispanic woman to win an Oscar when she won for Amor, Sublime Amor (1961). However, she was not the first Hispanic entertainer to win an Oscar. That was fellow Puerto Rican José Ferrer for Cyrano de Bergerac (1950).

When filming her final scene in Amor, Sublime Amor (1961) in which her character "Anita" is harassed and nearly raped by New York street gang members "the Jets", she was reduced to tears, as it brought flashbacks of similar real-life childhood experiences. When she broke down, the other actors in the scene immediately stopped to comfort her and help her get through the scene. The sequence sets up a critical plot element and is essential to the story.

When her star was unveiled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she fell on top of it, openly and uncontrollably weeping. She later commented, "I had been dreaming of this day since I was six!".

In her memoir she describes how stunned she was when a handsome stranger, with his wife on his arm, very brazenly flirted with her. It was the 1950s and the man was then-Sen. John F. Kennedy. Moreno also described her disappointment about one-time lover Elvis Presley being much more like "a baby brother" than a stud.

During the first season (episode 19) of A Empresa de Energia Elétrica (1971), she was in a sketch in which she shouted "Hey, you guys!" repeatedly. It became so popular with the show's producers that they decided to use it as the catchphrase in their opening, starting with season two.

Bigger than life is not difficult for me. I am bigger than life.

It is very important that women of this country be made aware of the dangers of osteoporosis in the sense that it is a silent and invisible disease with no symptoms whatsoever.

[Her Oscar acceptance speech] I can't believe it! Good Lord! I'll leave you with that.

A lot of young Latino actors have said to me, "Why can't we get an Oscar? Why can't we be nominated?" And the terrible truth is that if you don't get the right parts, you're not going to be. Are you going to get an Oscar nomination for one of those Judd Apatow movies? Not likely, no matter what nationality you are. And I think that until we as Latino actors get to do roles that have really serious meaning, it's going to be impossible to get nominated.

Once we went to the apartment of some brothers. Obviously, their parents were not at home. One of them was a big flirt, and he had a little bit of peach fuzz over his upper lip, and he was making eyes at me. He said, "Whatever you do, don't put on perfume, because that really makes me crazy." Immediately, I went into his mother's bedroom and dabbed some behind my ears.