“But I wanted to reveal something very different in terms of my success and the struggles.” And Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It is a moving exploration of her turbulent, up-and-down career, which saw her going from being cast in a variety of “exotic” parts in genre pictures, to winning an Oscar for 1961’s West Side Story, to achieving the rare distinction of the EGOT, having won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony.
And at one point he said to me, “You need help,” which now makes me really laugh hard because it’s one loony telling the other loony that they need help! It turned out he was absolutely right.
Let’s practice a little bit.” And I kind of slapped him, and he said, “Okay, but don’t do any less than that.” But what happened is when that moment came for me to slap him, I hauled off and slapped him.
Is it tough for you to watch a scene like that?Yes, it is because I know what I’m experiencing, and it hurts me so much that it took me so long to express what I was feeling.
He did the calling, I never called him, and sometimes he’d say, “Let me talk to Lenny,” my husband, and they would talk for a half-hour.
Because he and Tony Kushner were, in the most admirable way, determined to correct the mistakes that were made in the original movie with respect to gender and color and what is a Puerto Rican, what is a white boy.
I did a screen test, then an in-person audition for the acting part, then an in-person audition for the singing part, and finally Jerry Robbins — whose idea it was to audition me because he’d already worked with me on The King and I — warned me, “Everything is really good so far, but now you have to be able to dance.” He said, “How long’s it been?” I said, “I don’t want to say.” I think the last time was when I was 16, and I was in my middle-20s.
I’ll teach you certain sections of the dance that I think they might teach you.” Because that’s what a dance audition is like: You come in, they ask you to bring a flared skirt, and they teach you brand-new steps you’ve never done in your life.
So I went to the audition finally with my heart in my throat, and first the assistant dance director, Howard Jeffries, taught me the steps, and I got to do them well enough, and that seemed to go okay.
And it’s only later that you realized that was probably the last bit of entertainment some of them saw.Isn’t that something? There would be a big bell that would ring, which meant they had to board the ships.
Tell me about the period after you won the Oscar for West Side Story.That was a heartbreaking period because I just didn’t get to do anything.
Let me tell you, one of the saddest things I read, which of course I didn’t expect, but it makes perfect sense — a couple of critics who loved the documentary actually said, “One wonders with sadness what kind of career she might have had had there not been this curse of the Hispanic thing.” And when I read that, oh man, I got so sad because it’s true.
When you are presented with those opportunities though, what determines whether you do the film or show or not? Is it because you like the people that you’re working with? You won an Emmy for a guest appearance on The Rockford Files, and I know you were good friends with James Garner.It had nothing to do with liking Jimmy.
I said, “Okay, this is a Puerto Rican girl who has absolutely no talent and can just get by in English, and she’s auditioning for a bus-and-truck of Gypsy.” And the kids laughed and it was fun.
Despite everything films have put you through?Remember, I’m about to be 90, so I have no interest whatsoever in doing eight a week.
I do feel very strongly that Netflix, as wonderful as they are, did not do the job that they needed to do with it.
Of all the directors that you’ve worked with, who came closest to that character?The person who directed a movie called Seven Cities of Gold I was supposed to be dead in the water, hollered at me in front of everybody and embarrassed me in front of everybody because I was being stung by jellyfish, so I was twitching.