“Wow, this is a find!”: the actor who made Rita Moreno “shit a brick”
Some people have lived the kind of lives, long lives, that you can only even begin to imagine, and Rita Moreno is certainly one of those.
Now well into her 90s, she has tales to tell about some of the most legendary figures in cinema history, some of which probably stem even from within her home.
That’s because Moreno appeared not just in the original West Side Story, the film version of the 1961 Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein musical that won ten Academy Awards, including one for Moreno, but Singin’ in the Rain too, possibly the most iconic movie in Hollywood history, up there with the likes of The Wizard of Oz and Citizen Kane.
Moreno’s private life, or rather not-so private life, was just as star-studded, where the Puerto Rican-born dancer, actor and singer was in a tumultuous relationship with Marlon Brando for eight years, during which he left her for another woman, causing her to attempt suicide using his sleeping pills.
She persevered regardless, her career spanning an incredible eight decades and reaching a full circle in 2021, when she starred in and executive-produced Steven Spielberg’s reimagining of West Side Story, featuring Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler in the lead roles, which meant that 60 years had passed since Moreno won her Oscar for the first film. She was blown away by the newer film’s star, telling Time, “Rachel Zegler has a reservoir of emotions that she’s able to pull from every time she performs. I first heard her singing during rehearsals for a film, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is a find!’ I told her that I shit a brick when I heard her voice. You just don’t hear voices like that in movies anymore.”
She added, reminiscing about the golden days of movie musical actors, “She’s a triple threat, which is also rare in the industry these days, and witnessing her talent conjures memories from making MGM movie musicals with stars like Deanna Durbin, Jane Powell, and Kathryn Grayson. Rachel’s singing makes me think of silvery tones, and I hope her talent helps bring coloratura voices back to the big screen.”
If anyone knows about triple threats, then it’s Moreno, a winner of the ‘triple crown’ of acting with an Academy, an Emmy and a Tony win over the years. Her Grammy award, which she won for a children’s album in 1973, means she is also just one of 22 people in history to earn the Egot status alongside Audrey Hepburn, Elton John, Whoopi Goldberg and Spielberg himself.
Spielberg’s modern update almost matched the original in terms of critical acclaim, landing seven Oscar nominations, winning one for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ for Ariana DeBose, but it didn’t fare anywhere as well at the box office, losing tens of millions.
Now, though, even at 94, Moreno isn’t done and is in the midst of filming a horror called Theirs with Harvey Keitel, while Zegler has recovered from the furore around her Disney flop Snow White to appear in sold-out one-woman shows in both London and New York, as well as in the lead on the West End in Evita.
She’ll next be seen on the big screen in a comedy called She Gets it From Me, co-starring The Office’s Ed Helms and Marisa Tomei, which tells the story of a young woman mortified by her ‘pill-popping ex-punk rocker’ mother.
