Rita Moreno: A Memoir

by Rita Moreno

  Though it may have been only April or May, the temperature rose, and with it my emotional thermostat. If I could stay warm again, life would not be so bad; I would not have to cling so hard to Mami in the bed, and dread crawling out from under the bedcovers so much.

  As if the warmth unlocked our paralysis, we migrated again at once—to a new neighborhood, a better apartment.

  “Come on,” my mother said. “Let’s find a place of our own.”

  * * *

  As soon as my mother could sew enough dresses and scrub enough Anglo apartments, and we could fold a small garden of tissue-paper flowers that we could then sell to the five-and-dime, we did move to a place of our own. The first place was a single small room, with one twin bed that featured an iron headboard and footboard that dug into her forehead and trapped her feet. But it was our own.

  We moved up in the world—a literal ascension—to “the Heights.” The new neighborhood, in Washington Heights, was dramatic. The neighborhood was made up of steep hills that posed a challenge for residents on foot. We had to use the “step streets,” which were long stone staircases, sometimes a series of them, staggered, to make half-mile climbs across the neighborhood. We moved to Fort Washington Avenue—the highest-elevation point in Manhattan. You could actually feel the rise of the earth—a giant hill and the world seemed to open up on the horizon and soar across the river on a silver bridge.

  For the first time in the city, I could see the skyline and the river. It wasn’t lush or beautiful like Juncos, but there was a wild uplift, an excitement that life here might be possible after all.

  Our building was one block from the George Washington Bridge, and our apartment was on the top floor—we could not go any higher. The neighborhood rose and crested toward the steel ramparts that formed the metal extension of its fortunate topography. From our roof, the George Washington Bridge looked like a layered wedding cake. I felt I was on top of the world.

  To a child, it seemed that our new home propelled us straight upward and onto the bridge entry. A constant hum and thrum of traffic sounded from this great portal. At night, the stream of headlights and red brake lights lit the access ramp and the bridge itself, and fired across the river like tracer bullets.

  In the seventeen hundreds, Fort Washington had been an actual fort and had stood right here, where Mami and I lived. It was here that George Washington himself set up the defense against the British. And it was here that Rosa Marcano won her own battle for independence, a new home, and a new husband.

  I shared a history with the George Washington Bridge; it was born the same year I was—1931. And both of us were still young and new when I moved next to it. The GWB was both impressive and frightening, and when I was older I was invited to run across it, hide under it—play the GWB games that attracted all the braver kids in Washington Heights…but I cringed and held back.

  I adjusted better to the more natural environment the Heights offered. While not the same lush and gentle landscape of Puerto Rico, it at least did not share the dreary sameness of our Bronx neighborhood. The new neighborhood was not all cold stone, steel, and brick. To the north, there was a city version of a forest, Fort Tryon Park, without palms and ferns, but offering some respite from concrete. In the spring and summer, the border greenery, the turquoise oasis of the public swimming pool, the “secret” little red lighthouse below, and the Cloisters castle would offer enticements….

  Even to a child, the buildings in Washington Heights looked better, homier than the massive apartment complexes on Mohegan Avenue; the Washington Heights houses were built in the early nineteen hundreds on a more human scale than the Bronx apartment warrens, with better construction, before the shoddiness of post-Depression, post–World War I building.

  The Beaux Arts style, better-than-tenements midsize apartment houses had grand marble steps and ornate balustrades. Our first and longest-term residence, 715 West 180th Street, retained an external elegance in its carved stone, marble facade, and wrought-iron fire escapes with scrollwork. Inside, the main staircase was wide and took a graceful swerve at the bottom. The building was so old that it had been constructed before elevators; it was a very long climb up to the fifth floor, even on the wide marble stairs. It seemed in Washington Heights I was always climbing stairs—inside and outside. Wherever I went, I felt small.

  Inside, the building was a Tower of Babel—a different language and cuisine on every landing. Curry and Urdu on one, Chinese and Hunan sauce on two, Italian and marinara on three, Russian borscht and cabbage on four…

  This had its positives and negatives: Some spices tantalized; others turned rancid. This held true for behavior as well: A father one floor down beat his two daughters so regularly it became a sound track to life at 715—the repeated whack, whacks and high-pitched cries. But the girls seemed to accept this—and after a while, I did too; the shouts and whacks were a fact of life here.

  And there were other facts of life we had to bear. For instance, the grandiose architecture ended in the hallway. Inside, the apartments were narrow, with tiny rooms; our one tiny bathroom was so minuscule that we had to walk sideways to get to the toilet, and the toilet paper roll was behind our heads, which created a challenge. We had a miniature table in our miniature kitchen. Even our appliances were miniature. As soon as icicles hung outside our kitchen window, we set a galvanized tin box out on the sill to augment our midget Frigidaire. Whenever we reached for a glass milk bottle from the windowsill box, a frigid blast of winter would hit us in the face.

  But that was later. When we moved to the Heights, it was on a sultry day in summer and the neighborhood looked leafy, the building grand with its appealing features—not the least of which was the fire escape, with its ornate wrought iron.

  We took to the fire escape as if it were a balcony; I enjoyed sitting on the wrought-iron-grille base beside an open window, listening to the radio perched on the windowsill. Our new radio, shaped like a small cathedral, blared music to me—and to any other appreciative Latinos within earshot.

  The outdoors, the outdoors. At last we could again enjoy being outdoors. We soon appropriated the roof into our lifestyle, too. By day, it was our “tar beach,” my favorite leisure location. I could sit in the sun on a disposable blanket. “Pick one with rips,” my mother advised. “The tar can stain when it heats up.” It did heat up, and I could smell the melting creosote as I lay back to take in the city sunshine. I would carry up refreshments—a large jar of juice, the bottle saved from some spiced vegetable, and take sips throughout my long Saturdays of relaxation. I could read or, with my eyes closed, dream I was home…in Juncos.

  At night, the roof became a star-and-skyline-lit patio accented by the diamond dazzle of the bridge. On summer nights we would carry chairs up to the roof and relax there, have drinks and even dinner. We enjoyed the setting.

  Inside the apartment, a series of hard-won purchases were proof that our life was improving: the cathedral radio, first a small one, then a massive floor model; a telephone. Oh, life was better; Mami was right. For a time, life in the Heights continued its emotional ascent. Soon we were documenting our new lifestyle and joy in a series of photographs taken in our living room—posing in front of the Motorola cathedral-style floor-model radio (eventually replaced by a tiny screened floor model Motorola TV), me holding the new black rotary telephone receiver, aglow with pride. I would be dressed in hand-sewn frilly costumes—Carmen Miranda was a standout, complete with “fruit salad” headdress. Even the furniture was dressed up; my mother sewed slipcovers to cover everything: toaster, radio, TV. Rosa Maria left no living being or inanimate object undraped by her creative hand. She even made doorknob cozies, and when my aunt Titi was visiting and wanted to leave, Titi couldn’t turn the knob because of the cozy. “Son of a bitch! What did you do to the door?” But Mami kept going—covering more and more objects—even the large floor-model radio, completely encased; only the face of the radio peeked out from a little “window” my mother left open for
the screen and dials to show.

  For the first time in so long, since leaving Juncos and losing everyone there, I felt lighter, happier. In my new joy, I spun around the apartment in a spontaneous twirl. I had no idea at the moment of that spin that I was launching my show business career—that I would spin for the next seven decades onto stages and then film sets. All I knew was that blur of happiness and the sound of my mother and her friends’ applause. Rosita was dancing.

  AMERICAN DREAM

  My mother’s friend admired my impromptu pirouettes and said, “Why don’t you send Rosita for dance lessons?”

  How old was I? Six? I was still in my own world, but I loved music, and I spun a solo spiral course around that tiny studio apartment. Such potential talent was rewarded, and my mother and her girlfriend, who had “connections,” enrolled me to study with an authentic “Spanish from Spain” dance teacher. “Spanish from Spain” was a serious distinction. It meant not Puerto Rican or Cuban or Mexican. “Spanish from Spain” meant the ultimate Hispanic caste. “Spanish from Spain” meant he would speak the cultivated dialect very different from Puerto Rican Spanish—Castilian Spanish, complete with the elegant lisp. “Spanish from Spain” was also something of a racial distinction: Puerto Ricans came in a myriad of races and skin colors—fair, golden, tan, dark brown, black; Spaniards from Spain were white, very white. I don’t know whether Puerto Ricans themselves held this as a slight prejudice, but being a “Spaniard from Spain” was definitely regarded as an haute category.

  We traveled by subway to the dance studio of Paco Cansino. By luck, I was to learn Spanish dance from a master, a member of Spanish dance royalty. Paco Cansino was not only a Spanish dance teacher; he was the ultimate Spanish dance teacher. He was the teacher and uncle of Rita Hayworth. Rita was originally Margarita Carmen Cansino, a direct descendant of one of the great Spanish dancers of all time.

  Rita Hayworth was a Brooklyn-born, half–“Spanish from Spain,” half-English girl who made it all the way to Hollywood, where they used electrolysis to raise her hairline substantially in order to broaden her forehead. The studio beauticians dyed her black hair red. She was the daughter of a famous dancer, and the granddaughter of an even more famous Spanish dancer, Edward of Seville, who invented the bolero.

  To an eerie extent, I would follow in Rita’s footsteps—not only becoming her namesake, but also a professional child dancer. And I too would drop out of school and then become a movie actress.

  Of course, Rita Hayworth also became an idol, a goddess, a bona fide star, who married the Prince Aly Khan. Many years later, I was invited by an Arabian sultan to lunch at his palace in Malaysia. But it was a case of mistaken identity. The aging sultan mistook me for Hayworth and asked after Princess Yasmin: “And how is Princess Yasmin?” I hesitated, then thought, Why spoil his fun? Make him look foolish? And when would I get another chance to dine in a palace?

  “They’re fine,” I told him.

  Rita Hayworth was my inspiration, and her influence on my life was everlasting; her uncle Paco’s instruction and impact were profound. Together they changed the course of my young life.

  The trip to Paco Cansino’s studio started this journey…. For my first foray into “show business,” my mother, her girlfriend, and I took the subway down to West 57th Street. The Paco Cansino School of Dance was in what could be called the “Capezio District,” home to many dance schools, rehearsal halls, and costume and slipper shops. Just riding the elevator in the Carnegie Hall complex was a trip into the new world I would long to inhabit. I could hear opera singers practicing their scales—“La, la…la…la!”—and the sound of pianos playing and tap-tap-tappy tap dancers’ footfalls echoing through the building. From every floor, from behind every door came the music, the singing, the rhythmic tapping of feet. And from a small door at the far end of the hall, drowning out the rest, came the rapid boom-boom-boom of conga drums. My heart began to beat in time.

  The Paco Cansino School of Dance was housed in one large, bare, and very dusty studio. Paco was the sole teacher, but what a teacher he was! He was a tiny, almost child-size man, not much bigger than me, but with perfect posture, who affected the “Spanish from Spain” look: slicked-back black hair with long sideburns. His thin, narrow-hipped dancer’s body was always costumed for class in a formal suit (always the same suit, and it had picked up the musty smell of the studio), cordobes hat, and boots, with heels that could really echo.

  When I danced with Paco Cansino in performance, he wore the full regalia: cordobes hat, vest, shirt, fitted pants, and those Spanish boots that would raise a dust cloud when his heels struck the floor.

  As Paco had instructed the goddess Rita Hayworth, so he was “grooming” me. Paco was a classic Spanish dancer, meaning he seemed to direct his attention to his derrière or his armpit when he danced. His dark eyes were piercing, his angular jaw tightly clenched. He seldom varied his fierce expression, made even fiercer by the shadow of his cordobes hat and long sideburns.

  He led me around his dance studio, as serious and stylized as a bullfighter. Paco had perfected his “gesto,” the Spanish attitude—all thrust and angle from his chin to his heels: severe desire, controlled fury, the click of his heel and castanets. This was pure passion, reined in by prescribed dance moves. Paco taught me the classic sevillanas, the national dance of Spain. He led me around and around and straight ahead and danced me straight into my future.

  When I was only nine, Paco Cansino decreed that I was ready. He booked me with him for my first theatrical professional engagement in a Greenwich Village nightclub. My mother came with me, carrying my costume in a bag; we rode the subway down to the Village. Inside, the club was dark with smoke, and the smell of whiskey integrated into the atmosphere. My mother and I hurried backstage to prepare for my debut.

  I changed into my costume in a small dressing room; I remember peeing in the sink, for lack of the usual facility. For the first time I donned the traditional Spanish dance costume lovingly made by my mother: full ruffled skirts and embroidered blouse, combs and flowers in my hair. I got to wear powder, lipstick, rouge, and eyeliner. I was ecstatic. My mother stood back and sighed. When I looked in the little corroded mirror, I saw a new Rosita—so much more beautiful than the one I had always been….

  Backstage may have been tacky, even sordid, but the stage was elevated by a one-foot riser and an immeasurable distance of emotional height. From the instant my foot touched that stage and I began to move to the music and spin around with Paco, I knew I had landed: The spotlight warmed me, and I felt the admiration from the audience (or imagined that I did). I basked under the lights and in an unfamiliar sensation: pure joy. There was no stage fright—I was dancing, doing what I loved.

  I shivered with delight at the musical flourish and the nightclub owner’s introduction: “Damas y Caballeros, ahora dirigida del gran Paco Cansino, aquí: Rosita Alverio!”

  It is just as well I couldn’t see past the lights—the “audience” was probably a roomful of inebriated men and my beaming mother. And they all applauded. I stood for my first bow, aglow, radiant in the spotlight I wished to remain in forever. Who needed school? This was what I wanted to do—forever and ever!

  PAPO

  Meanwhile, my mother searched for love—clad in home-sewn dresses tight against her curves, displaying her ample cleavage—looking for a new husband who could “protect” us. She found the first of the next four “husband protectors” quite soon.

  I remember the addition of a larger bed, and the earlier and earlier extinguishing of lights. And my mami’s new, strange ceremonies with love potions and candles. I was sent on love potion runs to the botanica, where a cronelike creature lurked in the shadows, her gnarled vegetable roots hanging overhead, twisted, tuberous, and hairy.

  This woman had powers and supplies to implement them. I was very frightened of her, and even in the dark of her shop, what I saw scared me—her glass eye and mustache—and I recoiled at the strange, sour stink she emanated.
I had to breathe through my mouth; the atmosphere in her shop was so foul. The witch woman muttered and frowned as she sorted through her collection of dead snakes and glass jars filled with suspicious-looking organs and objects, and filled a bag for my mother. I don’t know what I would have done if my mother had sent me on a snake run. As it was, the product I had to carry home was strange enough—one bag contained five horseflies, which I dutifully carried back to my mother.

  Mami muttered an incantation and crushed the huge black flies into some coffee grounds. The next thing I knew, she had a gentleman caller who, unsuspecting, sipped the potion/coffee. We both watched, in suspense, to see whether this chubby mustached man would succumb—to love or worse. But all he did was leave and never come back. Soon there were other men, other cups of coffee, and soon my mami, Rosa Marcano, would marry again.

  How old was I when my mother remarried? I think perhaps six years old. She found her “protector” quite soon. I don’t remember when I first saw Enrique, but I do remember my mother’s big German woman friend who worked with her in the factories, and who was always offering to “fix her up,” and I have a sense she was somehow responsible for Enrique coming into our lives. There was always talk of men when Marga would appear, brimming with cleavage and sensuous energy. Marga was in love with her own breasts. It was not difficult to imagine carnal acts when she sat down in my mother’s kitchen chair and raised her sweater to reveal her modest but perfectly round breasts, which featured small pink nipples. “Aren’t they marvelous?”

  Yes, they were. I had never seen pink nipples before, and I was transfixed. All the nipples I had previously seen were Puerto Rican nipples, which were brown. I studied my own nascent breasts and not yet extroverted nipples and felt sure they would be…brown. Which made Marga’s tiny pink rosebuds even more alluring.