Soon after Moreno arrived in
Hollywood, California, to pursue her acting career, she met director
Robert Altman, and landed roles in three of his films:
3 Women, A Wedding, and
A Perfect Couple. She appeared in many other films, including ''
Mommie Dearest,
Swing Shift,
Oh, God! You Devil,
Nobody's Fool,
Men Don't Leave,
Clear and Present Danger and Grosse Pointe Blank''. Moreno was a regular on the long-running ABC sitcom
Perfect Strangers from 1986 to 1992. Her work on television includes appearances in television movies, such as
Crazy From the Heart and
Death Benefit, the miniseries
Tales of the City, and in numerous sitcoms and dramatic series, including
The Golden Girls, Family Ties, Valerie and
Melrose Place. Moreno played
Benny Lopez, George Lopez's mother, on
George Lopez (2002–07). During the 1980s, Moreno was a favorite of
Pulitzer Prize-winning
playwright Beth Henley, who Moreno was a classmate of at Southern Methodist University. Moreno performed in at least four
premieres of Henley's plays. Henley created several roles specifically for Moreno: "Popeye" in
The Miss Firecracker Contest, some dialogue of which was based on a true story told to the playwright by Moreno, and "Lacey Rollins" in the two-act play
The Lucky Spot. Moreno performed in
Firecracker at the Victory Theater in
Burbank, California in 1980, and in
Lucky Spot off-Broadway at the
Manhattan Theatre Club in 1987. Moreno also appeared in Henley's 1982
Broadway premiere at the Eugene O'Neill Theater of
The Wake of Jamey Foster as "Katty Foster", directed by
Ulu Grosbard, and in the 1989 world premiere of
Abundance, as "Macon" at the
South Coast Repertory in
Costa Mesa, California. Since the early 1990s, Moreno has served as an acting coach and advisor on numerous films, such as
Jerry Maguire, Rush Hour 2, Almost Famous, Parent Trap, The Family Man, Crossroads and
17 Again. She also appeared on
Wizards of Waverly Place on Disney
Desperate Housewives on ABC, and
Fairly Legal on
USA Network. ==Filmography==