I didn’t know her name back then when I was a tiny girl in Brooklyn but I remember seeing her and others on The Electric Company and somehow even at that young age I knew she was Puerto Rican and that made me happy. I’m talking about Rita Moreno. This talented Rican with all sorts of awards to her credit such as an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy was recently interviewed by The Detroit News, where she fondly looked back at her days at the Electric Company. She said:

We got to play any role assigned to us and that had nothing to do with ethnic persuasion. Whoever heard at that time of a black person, such as Morgan Freeman, playing Dracula? Or me, a grown Latino woman, playing a horrible little brat with long blond curls named Pandora?.

The Electric Company celebrated its 25th anniversary by releasing a commemorative four-disc DVD set this month. I’m putting this one on my wishlist!

Via / Virtual Boricua