Rita Moreno/Coming of Age/Winter 2011/by Kelly Oden

COMING of AGE

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Presented by Council on Aging of West Florida

L I F E S T Y L E

M A G A Z I N E

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S E N I O R S

WINTER 2011

DEALING WITH ALZHEIMER’S BE A SANTA TO A SENIOR

DOWNSIZING TIPS An Exclusive Interview with

Rita Moreno

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LOWE’S HEROES LEND A HAND

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An Exclusive Interview With

Rita Moreno

By Kelly Oden

Rita Moreno was born Rosa Dolores Alverio in Humacao, in a small town near the Puerto Rican rain forest. At age 5, she moved with her mother to New York where the precocious child soon began dance lessons. She made her Broadway debut at just 13

Photo by Mike LaMonica

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in Skydrift, starring Eli Wallach. Then, in true Hollywood tradition, a talent scout spotted her and arranged for the teen to meet MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who signed her to a film contract.

At just 79 years young, Rita Moreno remains one of the busiest stars in show business. She’s currently juggling performances of her own one-woman stage show, Life Without Makeup, with television appearances as Fran Drescher’s mother in TVLand’s Happily Divorced. In addition, Ms. Moreno is preparing to record a new album as a follow up to her self-titled CD and is currently at work penning her autobiography.

Such creative diversity has been the hallmark of Ms. Moreno’s nearly 70-year career. She belongs to an elite group of only eight living performers who have won entertainment’s grand slam of the industry’s most prestigious awards: The Oscar, The Emmy, The Tony and The Grammy. Her Oscar win came in 1962 as Latina spitfire Anita in the film version of West Side Story for which she also won The Golden Globe.

The Tony was for her 1975 comedic triumph as Googie Gomez in Broadway’s The Ritz. The Grammy was for her 1972 performance on The Electric Company Album, based on the long-running children’s television series. She won not one, but two Emmys— the first for a 1977 variety appearance on The Muppet Show and the following year for a dramatic turn on The Rockford Files.

COA recently had the pleasure of speaking to Mrs. Moreno about her life, her career and her love of family.

COA: Let’s start with your childhood. I understand that you moved from Puerto Rico to New York when you were about five, is that correct?

RM: That’s right. We came to this country by ship, which is what poor people did. It wasn’t a luxury ship, by the way. We docked in New York and moved to the Bronx, found a four-bedroom apartment that was occupied by three other families. It was just my mother and myself and we were quite, quite poor. My mother made a living doing just about everything that she could. Mostly she worked at a sweatshop. I remember she and I would make crepe paper roses for Woolworth’s for extra money.

COA: What was it like growing up in NYC? RM: We lived in the Bronx for a while. After that apartment, we ended up moving to a one-room apartment in Manhattan. It was tough. It was cold to begin with, which was very difficult to explain to a little 5 year old—why it was always so cold and so gray. Rita Moreno in West Side Story.

I kept thinking, what happened to all the colors? Where’s the bougainvillea? Not speaking English was huge—it was an enormous difficulty. Soon enough I found out that being from another country and speaking another language was not a welcomed thing in New York City at that time. To some extent, that has not changed a whole lot. I really grew up thinking that I did not have that much worth or that much value because children are so cruel. I got called some pretty bad names, like spic, for instance. The play I am currently doing, which is autobiographical, is essentially about that and about the idea that when you find out at a very young age, an impressionable age I might add, that what you are is not a

welcome thing, you spend a good part of your life from then on trying to be something you are not in an effort to get away from that thing that you are that brings about enmity and hatred. That is really what my play is about. It is called Life Without Makeup.

COA: I was reading about it. It has received great reviews.

RM: Oh, gosh, yes, it has gotten great reviews. I don’t think we’ve had one performance without a standing ovation or a lot of stomping and cheering.

We are hoping to take it elsewhere at some point.

The question is when, because I have a series also. I am like this year’s Betty White.

COA: Speaking of the series, Happily Divorced, what’s it like working with Fran Drescher?

RM: I love her! Aside from being funny, she is all that she seems to be. She is extremely warm and generous and of course extremely funny. And it is reflected in her set. It is interesting how the top always reflects or rather how the bottom always reflects the top. Let’s put it that way. If you are on the cranky, tense set it always comes from the top. If you are on a very happy set, again, it comes from the top.

She’s a joy. The premise is taken from her real life—she and Peter who co-produced and co-wrote The Nanny, were married for 18 years. One day, he said to her, ‘I’m gay.’ To say the least it was a huge shock and that’s what they wrote about for the new series. It’s about her ex-husband being gay and he can’t afford to move out. It is really hilarious.

COA: I am going to go back a little to your youth.

You were talking about feeling alienated, that you did not have a lot of self-worth. Is that part of what propelled you to want to be an actress and a dancer?

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RM: I don’t think so. Honestly, I think that was part, is part, of my DNA. Because before I had those terrible feelings, when I was in Puerto Rico, I danced for my grandpa. It’s really part of my wiring. The most natural thing in the world, at some point, was simply to go to dancing school and develop something out of that, which is what happened. A friend of my mom’s, who was a Spanish dancer, saw me bopping around the apartment, when I came to New York from Puerto Rico, and she suggested to my mom that I might have some kind of future as a dancer—and would my mom let her take me to her dancing teacher, which my mom did. The rest as they say is history.

COA: At 17 you signed a contract with MGM. How did that come about?

RM: Literally a talent scout saw me at a dance school recital and whispered my name into the ear of Louis. B Mayer, who about a year later came to New York. I was taken by the talent scout to meet Mr. Mayer. I got signed up, based purely on the talent scout’s word because obviously Mr. Mayer had not seen me do anything. But that’s why you have talent scouts.

COA: You did a lot of Spanish dancing roles for MGM in the beginning?

RM: The beginning lasted for many years. I played a lot of ethnic roles for many, many years—roles that always demanded accents and that always demanded dark makeup and long dark wigs. It lasted for a very long time.

really your first foray into acting because you got to voiceover these juicy roles and you really got to act.

RM: Exactly! Oh my god. You are doing your homework, my friend. It was the first time that I could to do anything that resembled acting. The rest of the time, at that time, I was dancing, it was really Spanish dancing.

COA: It seemed that it changed and then it didn’t change with Singing in the Rain?

RM: Well, SINTR was the very first non-ethnic part that I played in the movies. It was a very tiny role, but it was Zelda Zanders and not Lolita or Conchita. I was really encouraged at the time; I said, ‘Oh, wow, finally, you know I get to play someone that doesn’t have to have an accent.’ Then I went right back to the old stuff again. It was a very frustrating thing for a good part of my young life to have to be playing those roles. I played every ethnicity in the world in those days. I played East Indian, I played American Indian, and I played Siamese. I played anything that required some kind of accent. There I was –I was the utility ethnic.

COA: How was it in SINTR working with Gene Kelly?

RM: Out of this world. I worshipped him, I still do. It was one of those great, great meetings of my life—of my professional life. He was very nice to me. The fact that he put me in a decidedly nonethnic role was just a relief for me. I was on the set

COA: I also read something interesting that you talked about—that you did Spanish voiceovers.

RM: Oh, I know. It’s such a long time ago thing that I almost forgot about it. MGM studios used to have their films dubbed into Spanish and they were directed by Ricardo Montalban’s brother, Carlos Montalban. And I began to do the girl parts for the MGM movies.

COA: I love that you said that you felt that the voiceovers were Rita Moreno with Fran Drescher and Robert Walden on the set of Happily Divorced.

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every day of the shoot of that movie. Even for scenes I wasn’t in, which were in the majority, of course. I was there all the time to watch it all. I was just out of my mind with happiness. He was a genius. It wasn’t just Fred Astaire. Fred Astaire was a very different kind of dancer, and Gene was an athletic dancer. The fact that he always wore socks, white socks and loafers, just kills me now.

COA: You lost your first contract with MGM. You’ve said that you felt they just didn’t know what to do with you—they didn’t have enough roles that were “ethnic” roles.

RM: In a way they kind of shot themselves in the foot because they are the ones who stereotyped me and then suddenly they ran out of roles that I could play and that was that. Ricardo Montalban was one of the hot, young, sexy actors at the time—but he was a guy and he could woo a beautiful woman like Lana Turner. But being a man was a totally different thing. Being a girl who wasn’t even a woman yet, a girl, was a very different thing. I spent years and years of my life speaking with what I used to call a universal ethnic accent.

COA: I know you did change your name to Rita— RM: They changed my name at MGM. They didn’t like Rosita Moreno—Moreno was my stepfather’s name.

COA: Did you ever think about changing it to an even more Angloname at that time?

RM: No, that didn’t occur to me. Once I became Rita Moreno, I stayed Rita Moreno.

COA: How do you think the industry has changed now? There are so many young Latino actresses.

What do you think is different from when you were starting out?

RM: It is very different, but as Ricardo Montalban used to say, ‘The door is ajar.’ It’s still not open completely. I keep waiting for a Hispanic actress to really make it in the movies, in American movies, which that doesn’t happen if they don’t get the role. I am constantly asked by people, particularly Latinos, ‘Why are these actors never up for awards?’ I think it’s because of the roles; they are not getting the roles. The males have done a lot better, Andy Garcia and Jimmy Smits, actually Jimmy, as far I can remember, Jimmy never played

a Latino – with that very romantic sexy face of his, which really looks quite Latino, he’s never gone through that awful torture that I went through — the same with Andy Garcia, which is so interesting.

But the women, it’s still a different story.

COA: Can you tell me about landing the role of Anita on Westside Story?

RM: I had already worked with Jerome Robbins in The King and I. He did over-staging for the film.

When it was time to do the film A Westside Story, the first name that came to his list was mine for the role of Anita. He just thought I would make a really good Anita. He told Robert Wise that they should audition me, which they did do. I did it the old-fashioned way –I earned it.

COA: What was it like working on that set, and the King and I with Jerome Robbins? I heard he was quite demanding.

RM: Demanding is a kind word. He was downright mean, but he was an absolute genius. I really believe that. He’s the only genius I’ve ever worked with. There aren’t many around. He was extraordinary. I just sort of kept out of his way as much as I could. I think he had some respect for my work. After The King and I as I said when it was time to film A Westside Story, my name was the first to come up. I’m very fortunate to have been in the only two films that Jerome Robbins ever did.

COA: It is coming up on the 50th Anniversary of Westside Story...

RM: That is unbelievable! I know we’re going to do something pretty spectacular in the coming weeks.

We’re going down to L.A. to have my footprints and my handprints put into cement at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

COA: Congratulations, that is fantastic.

RM: It is fantastic. It will be me and George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn. Not bad.

COA: Do you have any other celebratory plans for the 50th anniversary?

RM: Not really, I don’t have time. No, I’ve got the play to complete. Then in just a short time we start a second season of Happily Divorced. I’m a busy lady, which at 80 is pretty nice.

COA: Better than the alternative.

RM: Absolutely.

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COA: You have been involved in dancing, stage work and musicals. Musicals in both film and on stage have really regained in popularity –they are in a renaissance of sorts. I wanted to see what you thought of some of the recent batches— particularly shows like Glee, which is extremely popular these days?

RM: I like Glee. Honestly, it’s really good. I used to like Dancing with the Stars until they got so desperate and put some really bizarre guests on.

Nancy Grace, give me a break. And So You Think You Can Dance, these things are happening on television and not in film, which is interesting. I absolutely loved the film version of Chicago. I think that Rob Marshall is pretty close to a genius.

He is spectacular because he can do it all. He can direct, he can choreograph, he does it all. I wish he would do more musicals. He’s just brilliant. I am so happy to see musicals come back to Broadway, also, because inevitably at some point or other I am hoping the movies will catch on. Maybe it will be a renaissance, wouldn’t that be amazing?

COA: I know you had a long relationship with Marlon Brando, and that was sometimes tumultuous, but that you remained friends, right?

RM: We did, that was the odd thing. After I married and had my daughter, we reconnected because I did a film with him called, The Night of the Following Day. He came and met my husband and he met our daughter Fernanda, who he thought was just beautiful. After a while –when he wanted to write his book, he wanted me to write a chapter in it. I was very torn about that. He offered me a lot of money and he kept calling and saying, ‘Have you made up your mind yet?’ Finally, I said, ‘You know, I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it because it would reveal as much about me as it would about you. Frankly, I don’t care to share that part of my life with the public.’ He got very upset and I didn’t hear from him for years. What’s really interesting is that, soon after he passed away, when they were picking up things from his house, memorabilia and so forth, the only photograph in his house was of him and myself from a film we did together. Isn’t that interesting? It was auctioned off. It was a picture that I had of us –I had a number of pictures from that movie. We were looking over the pictures one day and he said, ‘Oh, I love this one.’

It was a picture of me with my bare back and he’s holding my face as if to kiss me. And he just loved 34 COMING

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that picture and he kept saying, ‘I really, really want that,’ and I said, ‘No, I want it too.’ And he finally convinced me and it was auctioned off for about $50,000 soon after his death.

COA: You’re the only Latino performer, and the only woman as well, to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony, correct?

RM: Yes, I am. I am the only Latino woman so far to have won an Oscar. The first male was Jose Ferrer for Cyrano de Bergerac.

COA: Do you have a favorite among them? I was also wondering where you keep them?

RM: The Oscar. Well, of course the Oscar is iconic.

They’re all together on a shelf. There is a black background so that the gold of the finish really stands out. It is quite beautiful. My most precious award is the one that President Obama gave me three years ago. It is called a Medal of Merit for Artistic Contributions. It is also, by the way, a beautiful medal. It’s gorgeous looking. I treasure that one too because someone I admire greatly handed it over to me. It was really a wonderful event at the White House. All morning that day in Washington we were rehearsed and rehearsed about where we were going to stand what we were going to do. We were to bow our heads and he was to put the medal over our heads and then shake our hands, we were instructed to do that and then take it respectfully and go back to our seats. When I got up there, I took one look at him and I grabbed him –you can find it on the web, it’s hilarious – I just grabbed him and hugged him. It is a marvelous little piece of film. I love it.

COA: Tell me a little more about your one-woman show Life Without Makeup.

RM: It’s gotten enormous accolades. We are definitely going to take it elsewhere. The thing is when can I do it, because I have the series. It’s what my agent used to call a first class dilemma.

We have been picked up for a second season and we start shooting in January. With theaters, you have to book way in advance. They have seasons to think about. There are a number of theatres already that have come to see us. And the people who run those theatres throughout the country are dying to have us. But I can’t commit. You can’t just suddenly call the theatres and say, ‘Oh, gee, I’m so sorry, we have been picked up again.’ What’s really

hard, even though the show may go on hiatus, it may suddenly be, if we’re doing well next season that they might decide to shoot some extra ones. Even though I will be off by April, they may decide they want another six or another ten or something like that. So, there is no way to commit without getting into dreadful trouble. I am really dying to do it some more. We have packed houses and it’s a wonderful feeling that my life has interested people that are entertained and moved by it.

Rita Moreno performs with Salvatore Vassallo (left) and Ray Garcia during dress COA: I find the people that I rehearsal for the world premiere of Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup. interview for this publication are Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com often your age and they’ve had the RM: No. I eat like a truck driver then I work it off most interesting lives, often starting from humble beginnings, going through a lot, working hard to get when I do workouts. I don’t do my workouts right now because I get my workout in the show, and I where they are. It seems almost like a different don’t want to overdo it. I eat mostly what I love. I mindset than the way people grow up now.

RM: I do a talk for older people, too. I say that we eat a lot of starchy foods because I love them. I do love vegetables and fish. I can’t say it’s a special are the people who can pass history on to our diet. I have very good skin for someone my age. My children and to our grandchildren. We are the mom had great skin and my daughter has great source. I feel very strongly that grandparents skin. It’s part of the way we are built. should enlighten their grandchildren with the kind of life they had because that kind of life is gone COA: You and your late husband were married for forever. Our history.

46 years. To what do you attribute such a long

COA: You are very well known for looking fantastic, for having a very great, youthful appearance and a very youthful, positive attitude, so I wanted to see to what do you attribute this?

RM: I think it is very much a part of my DNA. I am, to this day, more energetic than many younger people I know. I really have an enormous stamina.

It is just the way I am wired and built. I am very energetic. My biggest problem since the day I started doing this play is mellowing down so that I can sleep at night. I am so wired after the show. It’s funny. When people come back stage to visit me in my dressing room, they always say, ‘Well, you know, we don’t want to keep you –you must be exhausted.’ And I say, ‘No, don’t leave. I am so wired right now. Don’t go away.’ It’s just the way I am built.

COA: Do you have any special regimen for exercise or eating?

marriage, particularly in Hollywood?

RM: It’s very unusual. I really think that you come to understand that you’re never going to find anyone better than that person, despite the differences— and we really had great differences between us. We were very different people and there were some pretty hefty disagreements. I am very outgoing and I’m robust and rowdy and he was a nice Jewish doctor. He wasn’t shy but he was very private and my behavior sometimes upset him.

You know that’s something that never got resolved, but on the other hand I had never in my life met anyone as loving and as loyal and as responsible as my husband. He was the best father you could ever hope for, and he was probably one of the world’s great grandfathers. He was devoted to those children. He was a very devoted man. The grandchildren, particularly the older one, who was the first baby, worshipped him. Absolutely WINTER 2011

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worshipped him. Lenny’s passing was a huge blow to Justin and I don’t think Justin has gotten over it yet—he really misses him.

COA: How old were your grandchildren?

RM: Justin was just ten and Cameron was just 11.

We built a room for them in the house and they still stay with me overnight. I love having them.

They are precious to me. I hate it when I hear grandparents that say the best thing about grandchildren is that you can return them – I find that so un-amusing. I love having them with me.

COA: What do you see about your role as a grandparent that is different than your role as a parent?

RM: It’s a part of history. They are fascinated by what my life was like. They adore hearing about grandpa’s life, which was so different than mine.

It’s passing on a kind of legacy. And more than anything in the world, I think it is about unconditional love. My daughter had it from me and my husband and my grandchildren have it from me. Unconditional love is everything. No matter what happens, I always said to them, even say to them now, and when my daughter was a child I said it to her, ‘No matter what you do, no matter how angry I may get—the one constant will always be my love for you, because that never changes.’ That is so important and I don’t think children get enough from that from their parents and their grandparents. There are oftenconditions—I will only love you if.... Those words are not spoken but they are certainly implied.

COA: So what causes or charities are close to your heart?

RM: I think young people mostly. Something like Meals on Wheels is also very important. This year I am going to give a lot of money, a lot of money for me, to mostly one thing—all the kitchens where people get fed. That seems to be the paramount thing that is missing from people’s lives right now, aside from the obvious. I am going to dole out some important dough to all the important places that feed people. I think it’s the most important.

Children need food to help their little brains and people need food just to live, just to get energy.

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COA: You live in Berkeley, California. Tell me about that RM: We decided to move up here when we came to visit our daughter. It’s just a completely different place from L.A. in the best sense. I love the people here. They really are special. I love the atmosphere here. There’s so little bull. I love the people. That’s why I fell in love with it when my husband and I decided to move up here. It’s always about the people. I’ve made great friends here. In L.A. it’s impossible to make friends.

Everybody’s in show business for god’s sake. And here I don’t think I know one person that is in show business, except for maybe the people in my theatre the Berkeley Rep—but even there that’s a not-for-profit theatre, which by the way makes a different kind of people. The first two plays I did for Berkeley Rep, I handed back the salary. And they said, ‘You know we can’t accept that because you have a union, etc...’ So I said, ‘Okay, I’ll just remake a check and hand it over —my own check—to the Berkeley Rep.’ And, that’s what I did. And they said, ‘Now you’ve become a patron whether you like it or not.’

COA: So what is your idea of a perfect day?

RM: A perfect day is one where I wake up and smell the roses. That’s a perfect day. I wake up in such a great place now. I wake up humming. I wake up humming, and I look at my beautiful house and I look out these huge picture windows out at the bay and the city across the bay. I just say, what a lucky lady I am. I have a family that I am insane about. I have a career that simply will not go away.

I am doing what I love most in the world aside from being with my family and that’s doing something in my profession. What could I possibly ask for? What am I missing? I miss my husband.

Other than that I am an extremely happy camper.

COA: What do you do for hobbies?

RM: I love to garden and I love to cook. I love to cook what I garden. I love to feed people, it’s part of my “Latino-ness,” I guess. I love dinner parties.

I love having people in my house. My house is big and it was meant to accommodate lots of people. I have a calm life now. It wasn’t for many years, but it is now. I am appreciating every single moment.