Music Center to honor Rita Moreno at Summer Soirée

Rita Moreno, whose career has spanned an Academy Award-winning turn as the hotheaded Anita in 1961’s “West Side Story� to her role as Liliana De La Vega on the CW’s “Jane the Virgin,� will be honored at the Music Center of Los Angeles’ inaugural Summer Soirée next week.

The veteran actress-dancer-singer, 84, will receive the Excellence in the Performing Arts Award “for her revolutionary efforts to help redefine the role of women in the arts,� the Music Center said.

The Puerto Rican-born, Bronx-raised Rosa Dolores Alverio made her Broadway debut at age 13 in “Skydrift.� In 2014, she told the Los Angeles Times that at the start of her film career at MGM in the early 1950s, she was quickly typecast in the exotic, dark-skinned “dusky maiden� role. “The house ethnic,� she called it.

“I should have had this little kit with a shoe box that had dark Egyptian pancake makeup, two hoop earrings and an ankle bracelet,� Moreno said.

Today, she is one of only 12 EGOTs — performers who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. She won Emmys for “The Muppet Show� and “The Rockford Files� in the late 1970s, a Grammy for 1972’s “The Electric Company Album� and her Tony for 1975’s “The Ritz.�

The July 7 Summer Soirée will be a celebration of female artists: American Ballet Theatre principal dancers and Southern California natives Misty Copeland and Stella Abrera will perform choreographer Alexei Ratmansky’s “Firebird� during the event, which will include live music and dancing in Grand Park afterward. Choreographer Debbie Allen and actress Regina King are among those expected to attend.

More information: musiccenter.org/firebird