The multi-hyphenate, who scored Critics Choice nomination and a Golden Globe win, could follow Rita Moreno with another Oscar win. ![]() He cast her.ĭeBose owns the screen as Anita, “one of the greatest roles ever written for a woman, especially a woman of color,” said DeBose in our video interview (above). Spielberg, luckily, understood, and when she did audition, that prep work paid off. According to Moreno, her former flame parted ways but stayed friendly until his death.North Carolina–raised singer-dancer-actress Ariana DeBose first grabbed attention in 2009 in “So You Think You Can Dance,” which propelled her to take her chances on Broadway, where she swiftly made her mark, from “Pippin” to the original cast of “Hamilton.” When Steven Spielberg’s casting agent Cindy Tolan called her in to audition for “West Side Story,” DeBose was starring on Broadway in “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical” and told the director (who remembered meeting her backstage on “Hamilton”) that she needed time to prepare before she read for him. She survived the attempt, but her therapist begged her to stay away from Brando. Whatever put the brakes on the famous pelvis, it ground to a halt at a certain point and that was it.įinally, after an eight-year on and off relationship, Moreno attempted suicide by taking a handful of pills. I could feel him thrust against my clothed body, and expecting the next move… but it never came… Maybe Elvis was inhibited by inbred religious prohibitions or an Oedipal complex, or maybe he simply preferred the thrill of a denied release. She writes of her dates with Elvis: My dates… nearly always concluded in a tender tussle on my living-room floor, with Elvis’ pelvis in that famous gyration straining against his taut trousers. Although, she admits that The King was hardly a hunk of burning love in the bedroom. To make Brando jealous Moreno went on dates with actors like Dennis Hopper and even Elvis Presley himself. The two continued their volatile relationship throughout two of Brando’s marriages, with Moreno unable to cut ties with the man she loved. Every aspect of being with Marlon was thrilling, because he was more engaged in the world than anyone else I’d ever known. In her memoir, Rita Moreno, the actress writes of her time with the star: We were locked in the ultimate folie à deux, a crazy love that lasted for years, until one day I quite literally was forced out of a coma and had to choose life over him… To say that he was a great lover - sensual, generous, delightfully inventive - would be gravely understating what he did not only to my body, but for my soul. While filming The Night of the Following Day in 1968, Moreno met the man with whom she would have a tumultuous on-again, off-again relationship - Marlon Brando. Moreno’s story is far from over, and she can still be seen on television today. Somehow she also found time to work on children’s television. Not only is she one of the most acclaimed performers of the 20th century, but she spent nearly a decade locked in a torrid love affair with Marlon Brando that included a tryst of sorts with Elvis Presley. She’s best known as Anita in West Side Story, a role that netted her an Academy Award, although her life can’t be distilled down to a single performance. ![]() Moreno began performing on Broadway at 13 and had her first film role in the 1950 reform-school girl movie So Young, So Bad. She's among the most celebrated performers of all time. She's coming off a three-year stint on the Netflix remake of One Day At A Time. If you didn't catch her in West Side Story, you might recall her yelling "Hey you guys!" on The Electric Company or consoling inmates on the gritty prison drama Oz. from Puerto Rico, had endured the stereotypical ethnic roles and flourished - and she has continued to flourish while controlling her own destiny. ![]() Rita Moreno, who was five years old when she came to the U.S. Hollywood didn't know what to do with Rita Moreno when her West Side Story (1961) performance brought her an Oscar, but not better roles, she went on her way.
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