Rita Moreno: A Memoir

by Rita Moreno

  (Aside: I didn’t know how to swim until I filmed that sinking-canoe scene, but I learned, just as I learned every movie skill I needed—when I needed it. Throw me in the water, and I will act as if I can swim.)

  Did any of this strike me at the time as racial stereotyping? I was eighteen, wearing a sarong and ensconced on a tropical island set with stars on location in Hawaii. What do you think? It was paradise. And I was having the time of my life.

  * * *

  My next film was one of the great—possibly the greatest—MGM musicals of all time. Gene Kelly picked me for Singin’ in the Rain. The icing on this sweet prize was that I would not be playing a coy little ethnic maid with my own pidgin accent; I was playing Zelda Zanders, the ingenue who becomes jealous of Debbie Reynolds. It was refreshing, after being cloyingly sweet for too long, that I could play the nasty little snitch. And I wore the most gorgeous silk flapper dresses ever!

  In retrospect, I cannot believe my temerity: Gene Kelly asked me to cut my long curly black hair. You would think I would leap for the hairdressing scissors. But oh, no. Little Rosita chose this moment to spit a bit of fire: “I don’t cut my hair, Mr. Kelly.” And I had the nerve to go on: “Cutting hair is not the custom in Puerto Rico. Girls and women never cut their hair; it is a point of feminine pride.”

  He caught his breath. I don’t think young actresses countered his requests very often. Then he said in that mellifluous voice of his, “Okay, you’ll wear a wig.”

  And I did. A gorgeous red flapper wig. I was awfully hot under the lights. But beneath all the layers, Rosita’s hair remained uncut.

  Meanwhile, what a thrill to work with Kelly and Donald O’Connor. Debbie Reynolds was actually more of a novice than I was. I was a dancer, at least; Debbie had never danced—she had been a gymnast. I will say she worked hard to catch on, and I worked hard to perfect the intricate steps laid out by Gene Kelly, who was pleasant but strict about getting it right.

  The sad story was Donald O’Connor, a very young actor/dancer/singer at the time. He was such an enormous talent, and the tragedy is that he was never truly acknowledged in his lifetime for the inspired performer that he was. He had grown up a child actor in a vaudeville family, and he had the proverbial rubber bands in his legs. I watched every single take—and there were many, for various reasons—as he climbed the wall to get the perfect cut on the “Make ’Em Laugh” number. I think he had to do it four hundred times, and he got bruises and rug burns and went to the hospital afterward. He was also smoking four packs of cigarettes a day. He was a brilliant dancer, but in my opinion he stole more than one dance sequence from Gene—particularly that “Moses Supposes” number! No one had ever done anything like it. That man could dance like no one else.

  But of course, in the stupid ironies of “the business,” Donald O’Connor’s star didn’t get to shine as brightly as it should have. You see, Donald had been “loaned” from Universal, at that time regarded as a very inferior studio, to do Singin’ in the Rain, and after it was wrapped, Donald was sent back. It sounded like “sent back to prison,” and in a way it was. Universal did not make the prime quality musicals that the Arthur Freed unit at MGM did. At Universal, they stuck Donald into a long, long contract with Francis the Talking Mule. He had to talk to that mule for a decade or more. No wonder he drank. A lot.

  When people think of Singin’ in the Rain, the classic scene of Gene Kelly skipping down the street singing the title song is the first thing that comes to mind. That scene has gone down in history as the most ebullient moment in cinema. I was there watching the day they filmed it. I was always there watching; I never left the sets, even when I was not in a scene. So I know the painful truth behind that ebullience. The day of the shoot, Gene Kelly was almost deathly ill, and he had to spend the day dancing and singing under a heavy synthetic downpour. He was running a 103-degree fever, and the water was ice-cold. (When did Hollywood catch on that the water could be warm?)

  The longer Gene Kelly skipped and sang, the harder and colder that water must have felt. I winced every time he closed that umbrella. At a key moment, the water actually gushes straight from a gutter rigged to dump directly on his head and he takes his hat off! And sings right up into the downpour: “I’m happy again!” He was lucky to survive.

  Gene Kelly remains in my mind a classy performer in a classic film, showing the ultimate in classic determination. I was inspired—for life.

  I was riding high. Three musicals in two years, working alongside some of the greatest performers in Hollywood. This was the big time! How far little Rosita Dolores Alverio from Juncos had come! I had left that life—I had left her—far behind.

  STILL ROSITA

  Hollywood was a world away from Washington Heights, a universe away from Juncos. But just as my star was rising, my old life would catch up with me, blindsiding me. A trip back east and an unexpected reunion with none other than Paco Alverio would remind me that I was still Rosita.

  I, along with a number of MGM players (I remember Katy Jurado was among them), was sent to a cinema back east—somewhere in Connecticut or maybe Philadelphia—to help dress up the opening of an MGM film. I don’t remember the film—it must have not been a great one. MGM must have felt it needed some help or we wouldn’t have been carted there. I do remember this promotional delegation was made up of a group of lesser players. I’d probably already filmed Pagan Love Song, and it may have been on the way to release. I was brought in as a young starlet for the preshow announcement and the premiere party.

  Out of the past, from nowhere, it seemed, there was my father standing in the wings. Somehow he had been admitted backstage on a special pass.

  It took a few seconds for my eyes and mind to adjust to this Paco: He was not the young Paco I vaguely remembered from Puerto Rico. This Paco was an old, old man, wizened from the sun; his slicked hair was almost gone; he was balding and had a pleading look on his face, as if he already knew he was not going to be welcome.

  Seeing my father was a slap in the face of memory: his eyes, darting, his mustache, even thinner…Yes, it was him. His slouch was gone; now he leaned forward, a supplicant. His little face screwed into a silent apology.

  Flash to the last time I had seen him: as my mother held me up on the deck of the SS Carabobo for that last look. Flash farther back: Don’t look there, under the outhouse door, into the fetid shadow. Something dangling in the dark.

  Paco Alverio reappeared in the shadowed wings of some grand old cinema—whatever its name was—fancy the way they were in the fifties: gilt encrusted, the movie “palace” of Pennsylvania or whichever nebulous state in my memory. And he was not alone. Paco Alverio had brought his “new” family with him. In my memory, his little group consisted of two boys, a girl, and a woman who had the beaten look of a servile wife. Or is it my imagination filling in the details?

  The children seemed embarrassed and discomfited. In my memory, they cower behind their mother, holding her skirt. And they are so tiny. The new wife was tiny too, tinier than I am. They were a Lilliputian family from another time and place.

  Paco Alverio introduced me to his wife. I don’t remember her name, only that her hair was permed, and he introduced me to his children. (I can’t quite say his “other” children—I felt so disconnected from him, from all of them—but I do remember him saying, “These are your brothers and sister.”)

  He hugged me with tears in his eyes, and said something like, “I know. I should have tried.” Meaning, I guess, that he’d failed as my father. Failed? How about disappeared? Become invisible? How about been nonexistent?

  I was angry with this stranger who, now that he had seen me in films, suddenly showed up. This stranger who’d never made an effort to help my mother out in any way. Who drove her away from home with his cheating. I was further angered that he’d brought a sob story with him to get a pass backstage: “I’m her long-lost father.”

  Katy Jurado, being Hispanic and empathetic (the two go hand in hand), was already mis
ting up, thinking that she was witnessing a great moment in my life, and was telling everyone backstage who would listen as we stood in the stage-left wings, “It’s her long-lost father; it’s her long-lost father!” Not too many of the actors were interested, because they were going over the lines they had to utter onstage at any moment. “Long-lost father. Nice.”

  “Two minutes!” the stage manager hissed. Leaving my side one by one, the actresses and actors were vanishing into the stage lights, as if being beamed up to another planet…and I was next!

  I stage-whispered to Paco Alverio, “Write down your address and phone number.”

  He fumbled for a piece of paper and scribbled down something and handed it to me. Of course, I had no place to put it, so I folded it and stuffed it down my cleavage, then ran onstage and into the white light. And then I was beamed up myself, smiling and mouthing my scripted jokes. The stage was hot and I felt myself begin to sweat. But it was also a “warm bath,” as they say, and the heat and light embraced me and did beam me up—back into my new life on another planet.

  The applause went on for a bit. Was it for me or for gorgeous Katy Jurado (later a Marlon Brando love, a rival, but at that moment my comrade in sequins) or for both of us? By the time we were finished and I ran back on my wobbly high heels to the wings, Paco Alverio had disappeared for good. Forever.

  Maybe it was that he reappeared and disappeared with such unexplained suddenness, but I felt my anger surface—scalding hot—and I began to tremble with rage, with all the words I had not had time to utter: Where were you all my life? Why didn’t you ever help my mother? Why didn’t you try to find me before? What are you doing here, now that I am in bright lights? Cashing in?

  I remembered the paper I’d wadded up and stuck in my dress. I reached in to retrieve it, and of course it had gotten wrinkled and damp. I unfolded it and smoothed it out, and I could just make out his written address in New York. There was no phone number. Had he just moved to America and had no phone yet? Or did he just not have enough money for a phone? Or was Paco Alverio now so sensitive, he realized that I would never dial his number? This time, was he courteous in leaving, or did he slink off, knowing he was unwanted?

  In the heat of my rage, I went back to the dressing room and cleared a spot amid the makeup bottles, tubes, and brushes. I saw my own eyes, bright in the mirror—too bright. I wrote fast—too fast:

  You were never in my life. I have nothing to say to you now. Don’t try to contact me ever again.

  I hesitated over the signature. Who was signing this? Rita Moreno…or…the little girl he never bothered to see?

  I pressed down hard and the point on the fountain pen spluttered its royal blue blood.

  Rosita

  * * *

  Was it days, weeks, or months or years later that I regretted mailing that letter? Now I feel the ache of lost chances—my chance to know more, to hear Paco Alverio’s reasons (excuses). I tossed off, in my anger, an opportunity. Is there anything sadder than permanent regret?

  It was fairly soon that I realized my other real loss: I had lost my chance to connect to another person I loved, and when I said his name, I trembled again—not with anger but with longing for someone who would now never be found: “Francisco.”

  * * *

  Sometime around then, when I had that ill-starred reunion with Paco Alverio, my mother received an ultimatum from her second husband, Edward Moreno. Moreno, still in the army, contacted my mother and asked her to join him in Japan. Rosa Maria could either join him or not, but if she didn’t, it would have an obvious effect on their marriage.

  So far as I can recall, my mother never hesitated: She would remain with me and Dennis in the little cottage in Culver City. Why did she make this choice? Was she choosing her daughter over her husband? Or was the marriage ending anyway? I never thought to question her decision to remain behind with me. She was enjoying my “stardom,” our new life in sunny California, and the sweet little cottage that felt like home. Her commitment to me had always been absolute. Me staying there and Mami on another continent? I could not imagine such a thing, and apparently neither could she.

  Edward Moreno walked out of our lives. Soon the distance became a true divorce, and Edward Moreno existed only as a silver-tongued radio voice coming over the radio airwaves with pretty poor reception from the faraway land of Japan. Also inevitable: his acquisition of a Japanese wife and a “new” Moreno family.

  I didn’t miss Edward Moreno. I had always loathed him, and his absence from our life was a pleasure. I think Dennis felt differently. He had grown into a boy who was tall for a Latino his age, who moped about the house. Dennis looked lonely even when we were all with him. My mother nagged him: “Why don’t you go out and play ball? Why he watch so much TV?” And I ran interference for him, saying, “Mami, just leave him alone.”

  Then one day, she did.

  With the awful timing only real life can achieve, no sooner had her husband left than I, her sole remaining breadwinner, lost my job.

  After the headiness of my sort-of starring in three major MGM musicals and hanging out with the greatest stars “in the MGM heavens,” my charmed existence skidded to an abrupt halt. No one was calling me in—for any other movie or even on a go-see. It was as if they forgot I existed. One day, unable to bear the suspense, I went into the office to take the bad news on the chin, and it came slamming at me: Bill Grady told me, “You’re fired. They’re dropping you like a bad habit.” Just like that. And you know what I said? “Thank you.”

  I was evicted from Oz with a thud when the Wizard pulled a lever that terminated my contract. He simply did not renew the option and I was instantly among the unemployed.

  Why? That is the most dangerous question to ask yourself when you are dumped—whether by a studio or a man. The answer, at such an abysmal moment, tends to be: “It’s my fault.”

  Had I been too coy with my transethnic accent? When I review Pagan Love Song, I ask, Maybe I was “too cute” as Terru? Didn’t I sing and dance well enough? Once the Elizabeth Taylor makeup was removed, was I pretty enough?

  My answer was to retreat to my room, and brood. Perhaps basing my pretense that I was still contracted to MGM on Laura’s ruse in The Glass Menagerie, I concealed my unemployment from my mother until it became obvious.

  Needing money, Rosa Maria Marcano went back to work the way only Rosa Maria Marcano could—rolling up her sleeves and working night and day. Again she sewed, she designed, and then she cooked! In restaurants. With her incredible adaptation to extreme circumstances, she became an assistant cook. This was amazing, and her new income could support our little cottage lifestyle while I was “in between pictures.”

  I gathered up what would always help me through my life: the determination to persevere. To stand up and say, “No, I deserve to work in movies. I like that life.” To spit a bit of real fire and say, “No. I will not be rejected like this.”

  And so I marched forth again, in my Elizabeth Taylor makeup, waist cinched, and in high heels to audition and get cast—however, wherever, I could. I would do anything—and I did.

  But with both Mami and me working who would care for my little brother during the day? It was soon summer and with no school, arrangements had to be made; an eight-year-old couldn’t be left at home alone. Mami decided to farm Dennis out to the Pear family. They were nice enough, had children of their own; but they lived so far away. I have no idea where she met them. I was profoundly sad when we first left him; he looked so puzzled. And my sadness intensified every time we went to visit. How could we abandon him like this?

  When Dennis was about twelve, there would be another occasion when Mami would send him away, this time to military school. I still consider my mother’s motives. I know she didn’t do this because Dennis was a bother or a brat or got into trouble. He was a good kid. But this was the second son she had left rather unceremoniously and with barely a backward glance. Was there something in Rosa Maria Marcano’s past or attitude
toward males that made these leavings possible? She stuck with me, and I never doubted that she always would, though I did have to meet her standard. I was always the “doll-baby Rosita, Nonni,” who had to be pretty, perfect, and then…a star.

  Was my mother’s love conditional? I was too uneasy about her to test those waters. I made sure I was all those things she wanted. I tried so hard to please her, to this day, I don’t know whether the goals were mine or hers. I certainly came to believe in achieving stardom—with my whole heart. I was firm in my resolve not to be booted out of Hollywood so soon after my arrival and quick adaptation to its enchantments.

  To work, I had to jump into deep schlock, and this was the era of the worst of my Lolita/Conchita Hispanic spitfires in low-cut blouses and dangling hoop earrings. I would do whatever it took—take whatever job—if it kept me among “the stars.”

  RITA RISING

  On the roller-coaster ride that would become my career, I soon rose to the heights once more. My luck served me once again: A Life magazine editor, flipping through images, stopped at my glossy picture and said, “Her!” It could not have been better publicity—and it was a miracle. The cover blurb enticed: “Rita Moreno: An Actress’s Catalog of Sex and Innocence.” While I had my share of bad luck in my childhood, I suddenly hit a streak of great luck. Mami and I were thrilled and bought up so many Life magazines, there were hardly any left on the newsstands in our neighborhood…. But it didn’t matter. I was on a winning streak.

  Darryl F. Zanuck spotted that Life magazine cover, with me baring my teeth and looking over my bare shoulder, and before I knew it, I signed another seven-year contract, this time with 20th Century Fox. I was being considered for a great role in a terrific new project: another first-class musical, but this time at 20th Century Fox. The King and I starred Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr. I was in the running for the part of the Siamese concubine of the King of Siam, Tuptim. The main competition was France Nuyen. I was sure that France Nuyen would win the part. She was at least part Asian (Vietnamese). She was younger than I—France Nuyen was only seventeen to my now twenty-five—and, at least in my eyes, she was more beautiful. She was obviously more right for the role. I was Hispanic, not Asian, and by now actually a tad old for teen concubinage.