Rita Moreno will receive the Stanley Kramer award at this year’s Producers Guild Awards. The Producers Guild of America announced the “West Side Story” star and executive producer as its 2022 honoree on Wednesday morning.
Moreno will be honored in-person at the group’s annual award ceremony on March 19 at the Fairmont Century Plaza.
“With grace, intelligence, charisma and kindness, Rita Moreno made her mark in history as a brilliant entertainer and leveraged that star power to shepherd stories that tap into the human experience and represent people and communities we rarely see celebrated in film and TV,” Gail Berman and Lucy Fisher, presidents of the PGA, stated in the organization’s announcement. “Beyond her on-screen contributions, she has used her unmistakable voice to hold a mirror to the prejudices and inequities that she so often experienced throughout her career. Her activism, strength and artistic contributions set the precedent for how to be a changemaker in Hollywood, and it is our great honor to present Rita with the Stanley Kramer Award this year.”
The Stanley Kramer award is intended to honor productions, producers or other persons for their achievements in raising public awareness for social issues. The award is named after producer and director Stanley Kramer, who helmed classics such as “Inherit the Wind,” “The Defiant Ones” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” Past recipients of the Stanley Kramer award include Jane Fonda and productions like “Get Out,” “Loving,” “Fruitvale Station,” “The Normal Heart,” “Bombshell,” “The Hunting Ground,” “An Inconvenient Truth” and “Hotel Rwanda.”
“The last thing I ever dreamed of in my young life was being honored in any circumstance,” Moreno said in a statement. “That the Producers Guild of America has chosen to honor me not only for my work but for the principles I have tried to uphold and live by throughout my life is so gratifying. I am thrilled.”
