Chita Rivera not too long ago turned 90, and he or she’s been reflecting. “I at all times used to assume that we should always have two lifetimes: one to strive it out, and the second to know what’s coming,” she stated.
However nobody would ever mistake Rivera’s life for a rehearsal. A 3-time Tony Award-winner, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and the primary Latina Kennedy Heart Honoree, Rivera is a theatrical legend, starring within the authentic productions of “Chicago,” “Bye Bye Birdie,” and “Kiss of the Spider Lady,” simply to call just a few.
And as she not too long ago took the stage on the New Jersey Performing Arts Heart, with musical director Seth Rudetsky, Rivera may nonetheless deliver the hearth as “West Aspect Story”‘s Anita, the function that made her a star.
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Rivera does not transfer fairly the best way she used to, however in her soul (she writes in her new ebook, “Chita: A Memoir”), she stays a dancer.
Rocca requested, “How would you describe the dancer’s mindset?”
“Oh, ha ha! Oh, my God! Do as you are instructed!” she replied. Â
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And no matter you do, do not complain.
“That’s definitely a theme of your ebook,” stated Rocca. “It is not one hundred pc; it is 200 %.”
“Yeah, that’s the means I used to be taught from the very starting,” she replied.
Rivera’s story begins in Washington, D.C., the place she was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero Montestuco Florentina Carnemacaral del Fuente. Her Puerto Rican father died when she was seven years outdated. Her mom was left to boost 5 youngsters.
In her ebook, Rivera describes herself as two individuals: Chita and Dolores. “Chita is, ‘Whats up, how are you? It is so good to be right here.’ Dolores is, ‘What’s it you need?’ It is a darker aspect. I consider that Dolores is accountable for me having a profession. She’s the center. She’s the braveness.”
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It was decidedly Dolores who, as a small little one, jumped from one piece of front room furnishings to a different. “I missed one time, and I went via the espresso desk,” stated Rivera. “And my mom stated, ‘That is it, you are out of right here. You are going to a ballet college.'”
At 16, Rivera was accepted into New York’s elite College of American Ballet. However whereas Rivera studied classical dance throughout the day, at night time she explored a unique aspect of herself, dancing at Manhattan’s Palladium nightclub. It was there, she stated, “I found the rhythm. I found the beat. I found my heartbeat. I used to be turning into attuned to my intercourse enchantment. And the rhythm was sizzling.”
She quickly deserted ballet for Broadway, in such reveals as “Guys and Dolls,” “Can-Can” and “Seventh Heaven.” By 1956, she was showing within the present “Mr. Great” starring Sammy Davis, Jr. “I fell in love with him,” she stated.
“What drew you to him?” requested Rocca.
“His sensitivity. His expertise. Oh, my gosh, his humor.”
Davis instructed her to not promote herself brief, that she had the expertise to be a star, which she quickly proved in “West Aspect Story,” dancing, performing and singing.
Chita Rivera and Carol Lawrence carry out “A Boy Like That/I Have a Love,” from the unique solid album of “West Aspect Story”:
It was on “West Aspect Story” that she met fellow dancer Tony Mordente. They married, and shortly sufficient she was anticipating. She continued dancing in “West Aspect Story” six months into her being pregnant. “Sure,” she laughed. “My gynecologist had a coronary heart assault when he lastly noticed the present. However I had stored in form.”
Photograph by Leo Kharibian
One {photograph}, taken by actor and choreographer Leo Kharibian, that captures Rivera’s vitality within the function hangs in a Manhattan saloon owned by one other man from Rivera’s life, the late restaurateur Joe Allen, who famously embellished his Broadway hangout with posters from reveals that flopped, together with “Deliver Again Birdie,” the 1981 sequel to “Bye Bye Birdie” that closed after 4 performances (“A bomb,” she provided).
Rocca requested, “What’s your recommendation to any individual, in any area, who experiences a failure?”
“Go away that behind, go away it behind,” she replied.
The 1984 musical “The Rink” teamed Rivera with Liza Minnelli.
Chita Rivera and Liza Minelli carry out “The Apple Would not Fall” from “The Rink,” on the 1984 “Gala of Stars”:
Minnelli, struggling on the time with alcohol and prescription tablets, was forgetting strains and lacking performances. “It was very awkward, understanding that she was having problems,” stated Rivera. “I felt very dangerous for her at instances.”
Simply two years later, Rivera would face a problem even higher than working with Liza. In 1986, a automotive accident left her with 12 pins and two plates in her left leg. Rivera not solely recovered; she went on to a Tony, dancing the title function in “Kiss of the Spider Lady.”
Chita Rivera performs “The place You Are,” from “Kiss of the Spider Lady”:
Rocca requested, “Do you assume that starting your life as a dancer helped you to outlive stardom?”
“I do consider that being a dancer gave me the flexibility to combat, and to resist, and to manage,” Rivera replied. “If I come again, I wish to come again a dancer. That might be my second life.”
    READ AN EXCERPT: “Chita: A Memoir” by Chita Rivera with Patrick Pacheco
PHOTO GALLERY: Chita Rivera
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   Story produced by Jay Kernis. Editor: Joseph Frandino.Â
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