![]() Moreno does take shots at the 1961 film (here’s where the book gets juicy): “ 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,” After West Side Story, it was pretty much the same thing. But I did it because there was nothing else. Before West Side Story, I was always offered the stereotypical Latina roles. I didn’t make another movie for seven years after winning the Oscar…. It never occurred to me…I was so unprepared.” “ It was my very first award and still the greatest of all,” she says. In 1961, Moreno landed the role of Anita adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s and Stephen Sondheim’s groundbreaking Broadway Musical, West Side Story.Īfter winning the Oscar for B est Supporting Actress in West Side Story Moreno thought she would be able to continue to perform less stereotypical film roles, but was disappointed. She was now known to Hollywood and the world as Rita Moreno. “ Your name has to go,” “ Too Italian” an MGM studio executive told her. “ How does a seven-year contract sound to you, young lady?” “ She looks like a Spanish Elizabeth Taylor!” Moreno recalls Mayer saying at their meeting. In the Memoir Moreno recalls her first time meeting Louis B. The 16-year-old did her best to dress as her inspiration to impress the studio head. Mayer studio chief of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio. ![]() This lead her to be discovered by a talent scout who invited her to a “ go-see” with Louis B. That gave me the taste of how cruel show business could be…”įrom there Moreno starting dancing in bars to performing for bar mitzvahs and independent movies. It was a wonderful experience, but the play closed the very next day. “ It was very interesting, because I had never been in a theater,” says Moreno, who had at the time been taking dance lessons. Guided by Paco Cansino, Rita Hayworth’s teacher and uncle, Rosita began performing at 9 and dropped out of school as her career blossomed.Īt just 13 she auditioned for her first play which she asked her mother to take her. Rosita didn’t speak English when she arrived which didn’t help her make any friends quickly or stick out any less however her escape from all that was dance. In those days New York City was a concrete city of a different sort, cold and indifferent with overt racism. In 1936 her mother brought 5-year-old Rosita Dolores Alverio to the United States from Puerto Rico to seek a better life – as much or more for herself as for her daughter, leaving her husband (the first of five) and her young son. Her success story is what most girls of her generation and now dream of. She is the only Latina and one of the few performers to have won all four major annual American entertainment awards, which include an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy and a Tony and was the second Puerto Rican to win an Academy Award. During a six-decade performing career, Rita Moreno has won an Oscar, a Tony, a Grammy, and two Emmys.The award-winning actress Rita Moreno opens up – in a memoir driven less by recollections from her career than by her effort to overcome crippling self-doubts and her dramatic love affair with Marlon Brando. ![]() Ironweed, though a hard read, exercises the soul and brings to life the themes of grace, empathy, and redemption. We might even step over them on the way to the grocery. The plight of the homeless and the disenfranchised of any society is troubling - especially in America, where these people are often nearly invisible. Ironweed by William Kennedy (Penguin, $15). Michael Chabon's novel about an imaginary Jewish settlement in Alaska is infused with colorful detail, humor, and many surprises. ![]() "Stop kvetching and buy your own copy," Lenny said. Hearing my late husband, Lenny, laugh out loud while reading this book made me so curious that I couldn't wait for him to finish. The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (Harper Perennial, $16). In this 2001 novel, Amy Tan shows how human experience differs in American and Chinese cultures, exposing the reader to a level of insight usually only known experientially. Usually it's impossible to understand the difficulty of cultural change unless you've lived it - in my case by leaving the island of Puerto Rico for the shores of big America. The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan (Ballantine, $15). Fromm distills the elements of true love: care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge of the other person. Psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm made me realize that enduring love takes hard work and the committed discipline of a bodybuilder. Hollywood heat and sexual attraction do not a lasting relationship make. The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm (Harper Perennial, $15).
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