Rosa Maria "Rosie" Perez (born September 6, 1964) is an American actress, community activist, talk show host, author, dancer, and choreographer. Her film breakthrough was in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989). She followed this with White Men Can't Jump (1992), and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Fearless (1993). She was also nominated for three Emmy Awards for her work as a choreographer on In Living Color. In 2007, Perez starred on Broadway as Googie Gomez in a revival of The Ritz, and she was nominated for an Indie Spirit Award for her performance in The Take. She is currently a regular host on The View and in 2015 she returned to Broadway to star in Fish in the Dark, a new play written by Larry David.
Perez was born in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, to mother Lydia Perez and Ismael Serrano, a merchant marine seaman. Her parents, who were both from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, were married to other people when they met—she is the product of their affair. She was born at the now-closed Greenpoint Hospital in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn. Perez became a ward of the state when her mother took her from an aunt, who had been raising her.
She was transferred to a group foster home at age 3 and lived in foster care in New York and Peekskill until age 8, and was still legally considered a ward of the State of New York until age 12 years. Her mother and aunt frequently visited, and her father made an unsuccessful custody bid at one point. She has five brothers and sisters from her mother's marriage to her mother's first husband, Ventura Perez, but also has additional half-brothers and half-sisters (a total of 10 children).
These life problems left Perez with a speech impediment. She eventually moved in with paternal aunt, Ana Dominga Otero Serrano-Roque, and attended Grover Cleveland High School, which is located in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens. Her mother died of AIDS-related complications in 1999. Perez considers herself Puerto Rican and had a strict Catholic upbringing, which she has credited to the influence of the nuns during her childhood.
