by Rita Moreno
Dennis was devastated—and devastating to look at. I could see in his face that he understood, as I hadn’t, that if I’d succeeded with those pills, I would have been lost to him forever. And my little brother would truly be lost without me, his ally and defender. The look on his tearful face said, You didn’t think of me, did you?
I did not. An act that was, in my mind, supposed to give me peace had nearly betrayed me in the most unexpected and heartbreaking way. How could I have not thought of them?
Yet, at the precise moment I’d swallowed the pills, I had thought of no one. Not even Marlon. I had just wanted an escape from my torment.
Now, seeing my small, precious family at my bedside made me vow to change my life. “From now on,” I promised them, “everything will be different.”
And that was when I made what even Marlon termed “the sharpest right turn” he had ever witnessed.
* * *
In the ultimate irony, the person most responsible for helping me heal after my breakdown—apart from myself, of course—was Marlon. He was the one who had originally suggested a therapist. Now Dr. Korngold said, in no uncertain terms, that I must give up Marlon forever.
“Rita, you must never, ever see him again,” Dr. Korngold said. “It will kill you.”
He told Marlon exactly the same thing: “Do not ever see Rita again. You will kill her.”
It was wrenching to know that I would never be with Marlon again, but to do otherwise would be to die. I knew that I must avoid Marlon at all costs if I were going to save myself—and the people I loved most in the world, my mother and brother.
We moved on, Marlon and I. He married Tarita, his Tahitian princess, in 1962. They bought property in Tahiti and had a son, Simon Teihotu, and a daughter, Tarita Cheyenne.
Me? I went back to trying to find acting jobs and a semblance of normal life.
SAVED BY WEST SIDE STORY
Often in my experience, the lowest lows in my life have been followed by great, unexpected highs. West Side Story would change my life forever, but not before months of arduous work, a demanding schedule, the exhausting rehearsal—and my failed suicide attempt shortly after the film wrapped.
It doesn’t seem possible that it has been so many years since I spun around in that violet dress, petticoats flaring, singing “America.” But fifty years later, George Chakiris, Russ Tamblyn, and I were kneeling in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on a red velvet cushion with sticks in hand to write our names in wet cement below our hand- and shoe prints. I was thankful my faithful friend and dance partner, George, offered Anita one more “lift.”
“Rita Morno?” he read. In the excitement and flashing of the cameras, I’d written my name without the “e.” Oh the things we forget at eighty!
Later that evening, I’d get to celebrate with the “kids,” the dancers from West Side Story, now in their sixties and seventies.
The fiftieth birthday of West Side Story marked a half century of change and many hard-won victories for minorities in show business.
The role of Anita in West Side Story is the epitome of the great ethnic role. Yet a funny, little-known fact is that the show was originally conceived as a Jewish gang versus an Irish gang—and it was called East Side Story! If that show had been made, I wouldn’t have been cast, certainly. I am forever glad that the producers decided that the Irish/Jewish story had already been told onstage as Abie’s Irish Rose.
While I had been balking all my life at playing stereotyped Hispanic roles in the movies, all of those Conchitas and Lolitas, I leaped at the opportunity to audition for the part of Anita. Anita was real! She was Puerto Rican, and she was fighting for her rights. She had plenty to say about what was wrong in America—and in the world. At this point, I’d never been given the opportunity to play the part of a woman who stood up for herself. Her suffering, her anger, were my suffering, my anger. Becoming Anita was a personal mission for me. I had fled down those mean streets in fear of the gangs, chased and haunted by that awful hiss: “Spic!”
When I had to play the attack scene in the candy store, I wept and broke down—right on set. It was that incredible, amazing, magical thing that happens sometimes when you’re acting and you have the opportunity to play a part so close to your heart: You pass through the membrane separating your stage self from your real self. For a time, at least, you are one person. Could that be the scene that caught Oscar’s eye?
Going into the production I knew that West Side Story wasn’t guaranteed to be a commercial success. When I heard the price of tickets would be five dollars, I actually cried out, “No one will come!” Reserved seats for a movie? It was unheard-of, and my dark little alter ego foresaw failure.
I admit now that even after the movie was finished and I knew it was brilliant, I still did not foresee its success, despite the sweat and tears and talent poured into making the film by greats like Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, and Jerome Robbins, the latter of whom I had worked with on The King and I, his only other film.
I was in complete awe of Jerry Robbins. He could be frightening to work with, because he could be so temperamental, ferocious, and even mean. Before he left the set of The King and I to go back to New York, Jerry had told me that he was going to make West Side Story on Broadway. He said that he thought I’d be perfect for the part of Maria, the part eventually played by Natalie Wood in the film, and asked whether I’d audition for it.
I agreed, but at the last minute got cold feet. I felt so unsure of myself at that time that I didn’t think I could do it. My prior stage experiences, like Skydrift and Camino Real, had all been ego-destroying disasters. To me, the stage yawned open like a black cavern, and I was terrified about going back in there. I wanted to stay in movies.
My future role as Anita, the one that would win me that golden Oscar, was played on the Broadway stage by Chita Rivera. It had to have been very difficult for Chita, who performed brilliantly in the play, not to appear in the movie. Compound that with the fact that her husband, Tony Mordente, played in both. Under those circumstances could I have been as gracious as Chita? Years later, I attended her one-woman show and laughed hysterically hearing her say, “When Rita Moreno got the role of Anita in the movie West Side Story, I wanted to kill myself. But when she won the Oscar for West Side Story, I wanted to kill her!” And I said to myself, “That is one classy dame!”
When it was announced that West Side Story would be made into a movie, the news hit the media and filled every trade publication. My agent, Mike Rosenfeld, was on the phone instantly to tell me he had submitted my name for the part of Anita. I told Marlon what Mike had done, and, knowing how badly I wanted to make a movie again, he called Mike to encourage him to “work hard to get her that audition.” It was a very generous act on Marlon’s part, as he was loath to deal with anyone at any level of the Hollywood establishment. Later, Mike told me about Marlon’s call and how, when he heard Brando’s voice, he shot up from his chair as though royalty had entered the room. “Then I damn near passed out,” he told me. But even with Mike’s concerted efforts, he still couldn’t arrange an audition or get through to producers.
It was Jerry Robbins who told codirector Robert Wise, “She’d be perfect for the part of Anita.” And when I got the call to audition, I was both elated and panicked. I had just over a month to prepare, and hadn’t danced since my MGM days. I ran to the local dancing school and took lessons all day, every day. I nearly killed myself trying to improve my skills. Could I even do it? It had been more than ten years since I’d put on my Capezio dancing shoes. I sought out a friend who had played the part of Anita on the coast-to-coast tour of the play and asked her to teach me some steps.
Then it came time for the three days of audition. The first day I sang, and that went well. Day two was acting. I chose to read from the candy-shop scene, and could tell Jerry and Robert were very moved. I felt hopeful until Jerry warned me that if I didn’t cut it in the dance auditions, I was out. He added that
he really wanted me for the part, but it all depended on me. Nothing like a little pressure!
My heart leaped to my throat the day of the dance audition. What if I wasn’t good enough? What if the steps I had learned weren’t the same? What if I couldn’t manage the turns? I wanted this part so badly!
I was being shown the steps by Howard Jeffrey, Jerry’s dance assistant, and I was beyond relieved that they were the same steps I had learned. Sometime later I heard that Howard reported to Jerry, “She’s pretty good. She has style, she’s funny and vivacious, and she’s out of shape, but I couldn’t believe how quickly she picked up the steps.” Ha! Perseverance and hard work paid off again!
Let me say a little more about Jerry Robbins’s reputation for meanness and maltreatment of dancers. It is well-known Broadway lore that he had finally so angered the male dancers in the production of the play that they burned their knee pads in front of his office door. From months of observation, I concluded that Jerry was filled with a puzzling self-loathing that spilled over onto all the people with whom he worked, especially the men. Jerry was never mean to me, but he was brutally hard on me. Never mean, but sitting on the fence of mean.
I felt I couldn’t keep up with the younger dancers, who had such superior skills. I was out of my league. Plus, I could never, ever be as good as Chita—forever the best. But I kept dancing—dancing to perfect the steps, dancing to keep up with Marlon, and dancing with anxiety, my faithful partner, all the way to a breakdown.
Although it may seem bizarre, given the chance I would work with Jerry again in a heartbeat. Jerry’s choreography was wildly original and impossibly brilliant. Torn ligaments, twisted ankles, and pulled backs were necessary offerings to Jerry, our god of dance. I was having great difficulty with my knees during the production, so I went to see an orthopedist. He took one look at me and said, “It’s very simple; you have old knees.”
“Old knees? I’m only twenty-six!”
And he said, “Uh-huh…”
I understood what Jerry was getting at with his choreography, but who would buy it? I wondered. Leaping male dancers doing balletic moves in alleyways? Of course, it worked not only well, but outrageously well.
Sadly, Jerry was fired before the movie was finished. But the filming would never have gotten finished if it had to meet Jerry’s impossible standards. He was such a perfectionist, he could never declare, “It’s a print.”
Jerry ended up doing all of the choreography save for one number, the mambo at the gym. Whatever his perfectionist, impossible nature, Jerome Robbins was a genius. What a joy to have worked with him!
One of the few things that I disdained while filming the movie was the makeup used to paint the Puerto Ricans the same color. We Sharks were all the same homogeneous brown! Our gang, including me, was a uniform tobacco brown color, and that was just plain wrong and inaccurate. Puerto Ricans, with their varied genetic ancestry—Spanish, Taino Indian, Black, Dutch—are born with a broad palette of skin colors, from outright white to true black.
And, of course, it was uncomfortable for Hispanics to see Natalie Wood play Maria, especially because we’d heard that Natalie hadn’t wanted the part, but had been so prevailed upon to take it that she couldn’t refuse. Natalie seemed uncomfortable in her role as Maria when she was around us, a rowdy, raucous group of dancers. This may explain her nonengaging demeanor with us “Gypsies” throughout the shoot. It might have been helpful had we been able to bond with Natalie, but she kept her distance.
Having health problems during the shoot made it difficult for me. I was hyperactive due to a thyroid condition that caused my eyes to “pop.” If you watch the movie closely, you will see that my vivacious eye rolls are just a tad exaggerated, though I do like to think that I got away with it.
Robert Wise confided later that he almost didn’t cast me because of my “popping eyes.” He constantly directed me, “Watch your eyes!” And so, on top of singing, dancing, and acting simultaneously, I also had to concentrate on keeping my eyelids lowered.
Ultimately, I can’t say that anything about the making of West Side Story was a mistake, because the movie was brilliant and made history. It was a revolution, especially given the excitement of the choreography. Nothing like this had ever been done on film before. The reviews for the movie were ecstatic. One famous New York Times critic, Bosley Crowther, praised me in particular—but I was a bit crushed to see that he fell back on my least favorite cliché: “Spitfire.”
* * *
As West Side Story was nearing the end of production, I became more and more exhausted. I was dealing with a thyroid condition, my relationship with Marlon was unraveling, and while I was filming West Side Story I was also filming Summer and Smoke. Paramount was very eager to have me play the part of sexy temptress Rosa Zacharias in this film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play. I wasn’t especially happy about my role in Summer and Smoke, because although it was an important film by a very important playwright, I was again playing a stereotypical Latina.
I am profoundly saddened to remember that this perfect storm of despair led to such a desperate attempt to close the book on my life. The suicide attempt and the difficult healing process afterward were arduous. Yet I am forever grateful for the support of my close friend and roommate Phyllis, who made other chapters possible. So I dutifully moved forward and found another part—a character somewhere between “island maiden” and “strong native female”—and traveled to the Philippines to play a girl guerrilla, a hybrid double agent/whore/fighter, in Cry of Battle. The picture costarred Van Heflin as a seedy opportunist ruthlessly switching sides in the Philippine guerrilla war versus their own military government and the Japanese.
Cry of Battle was a B picture and closely censored by the Filipino government. In truth, the part was just another paycheck and wasn’t at all helpful to my healing, but at least the location was nearly identical to the rain forest of my childhood, El Yunque. In a way, it felt as if I had returned home, because of the gentle, smiling people, the rain forest, and the fragrant flowers. I could easily remember standing in the river while Mami did our wash. I hoped this was symbolic of my new start in life—my rebirth.
* * *
That movie shoot was distinguished by two remarkable occurrences. The first was the appearance of a never-before-seen half brother, a son by my biological father, Paco Alverio. When the boy called and told me that he was stationed nearby for the U.S. Army in Japan, I excitedly invited him to meet me in my hotel.
He was a slight young man with a thin mustache. I imagined a resemblance between us, but maybe there was none. The boy was so shy that he was almost silent as we sat there in my hotel room and regarded each other. I autographed a picture for him as I tried to draw him out, and gave him all my contact information. Although I had refused to see our father again, I was pleased to meet him.
But the boy literally was too shy to speak, which made the visit painful for me. It was also poignant; after all, we were related, and we could have been a family. I was truly starting to think more and more about family.
Would I ever become a wife and have a family of my own? I was beginning to feel a longing for stability that I’d never experienced before.
The second occurrence happened on February 26, 1962. I was stunned. It was late in the evening when I returned to the hotel from the day’s shoot. There, waiting at the front desk, was a telegram from my agent informing me that I had been nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story!
It had never occurred to me that I might be nominated for the Oscar. It just didn’t seem in the realm of possibility, especially for a Puerto Rican girl. Only one Hispanic in history had ever won an Oscar: José Ferrer, who had earned the Best Actor award for playing a non-Hispanic role in Cyrano de Bergerac.
In fact, no Hispanic woman had ever won any Oscar, ever! I didn’t even dare hope that I’d actually win. It is a cliché, I know, when people say, “It’s an honor just to be nominated.” Bu
t for me it was true. It was an honor. More than that, it was a dizzying joy for me to be nominated, erasing much of the pain of the previous several years. I thought it was impossible to go farther than this nomination, but one thing was for sure: I was determined to fly home to LA for the awards!
There followed a flurry of negotiations with the movie company. The result was that they would release me for only three days: one day to fly over, one day for the Oscar ceremony, and one day to fly back to the jungle.
I didn’t care. The important thing was that I was going! I ordered a heavily brocaded dress made of special Japanese obi fabric, a gorgeous gown with a black bateau top that I still have (and can still get into, happily).
On April 9, 1962, I attended the Academy Award ceremony. George Chakiris, who had also been nominated, was my escort, and on the way in the limo we laughed and practiced our “loser faces”—the fake smiles we would need to show when other actors won in our categories.
I was so convinced that I wouldn’t win that I almost gave that fake smile when my name was called: “And the winner is…Rita Moreno!”
Stunned, I made my way up to the stage and stared in disbelief as Rock Hudson handed me the Oscar. I was so giddy that I was literally speechless. I didn’t thank anyone, because I hadn’t prepared a speech. All I managed to say was, “I do not believe it! And I leave you with that!” before I ran off.
As I glided offstage, the cohost of the ceremony, Joan Crawford, seized me and trapped me in her viselike grip. She was built like a linebacker. “I am so glad,” she intoned, “that you have chosen to share your moment of triumph with me!”
She held me for a good fifteen minutes, mugging for the photographers who were there to photograph me. Because of our height difference, I never saw Joan’s face—just her impressive bosom. When the photographer finally managed to peel me from her death grip, I was ushered to the press room, where I congratulated George, who won the award for Best Male Supporting Actor, and join my mom, who was waiting in the audience for me to return.
