Chita Rivera, the dynamic dancer, singer and actor who garnered 10 Tony nominations, profitable twice, in an extended Broadway profession that solid a path for Latina artists and shrugged off a near-fatal automotive accident, died Tuesday. She was 91.
Rivera’s loss of life was introduced by her daughter, Lisa Mordente, who stated she died in New York after a short sickness.
Rivera first gained huge discover in 1957 as Anita within the unique manufacturing of West Side Story and was nonetheless dancing on Broadway together with her trademark power a half-century later in 2015’s The Visit.
Chita Rivera in ‘West Side Story.’.
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“I wouldn’t know what to do if I wasn’t moving or telling a story to you or singing a song,” she instructed The Associated Press then. “That’s the spirit of my life, and I’m really so lucky to be able to do what I love, even at this time in my life.”
In August 2009, Rivera was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the very best honor the U.S. can provide a civilian. Rivera put her hand over her coronary heart and shook her head in wonderment as President Barack Obama introduced the medal. In 2013, she was the marshal on the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City.
Rivera rose from refrain woman to star, collaborating alongside the best way with lots of Broadway’s biggest abilities, together with Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, Michael Kidd, Harold Prince, Jack Cole, Peter Gennaro and John Kander and Fred Ebb.
She rebounded from a automotive accident in 1988 that crushed her proper leg and have become an indefatigable star on the highway. She was on Broadway in a raucous manufacturing of The Mystery of Edwin Drood in 2012 and later The Visit, incomes one other finest actress Tony nomination.
“She can’t rehearse except for full-out,” stated playwright Terrence McNally in 2005. “She can’t perform except for full-out, no matter what the size of the house. She’s going to be there 101 per cent for that audience.”
Chita Rivera dancing in New York City.
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She received Tonys for The Rink in 1984 and Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1993. When accepting a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2018, she stated, “I wouldn’t trade my life in the theater for anything, because theater is life.”
She was nominated for the award seven different instances, for Bye Bye Birdie, which opened in 1960; Chicago, 1975; Bring Back Birdie, 1981; Merlin, 1983; Jerry’s Girls, 1985; Nine, 2003; and Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, 2005.
“I don’t think we have enough original musicals,” she instructed The Associated Press in 2012. “I know I’m being old fashioned, but the theater is the place where music, lyrics, words, scenery and stories come together. And I’ve been blessed enough to have done several shows when they really did. They take you places and they’re daring. That’s what we need.”
Her albums embrace 16 tracks pulled from her unique forged recordings and put out as a part of Sony’s Legends of Broadway collection and two solo CDs — And Now I Sing for a tiny file label within the Sixties and And Now I Swing in 2009 for Yellow Sound Label.
In the 1993 musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, Rivera performed the title position, a glamourous film star on the middle of the fantasy lifetime of an inmate in a South American jail. The story, from a novel by Manuel Puig, had already been made into an Oscar-winning 1985 film.
In his assessment, then-Associated Press drama critic Michael Kuchwara wrote that Rivera “is more than a musical theater star. She’s a force of nature — which is exactly what is needed for the role of the Spider Woman. With her Louise Brooks haircut, brassy voice and lithe dancer’s body, Rivera dominates the stage whenever she appears.”
In 1975, she originated the position of Velma Kelly (to Gwen Verdon’s Roxie Hart) within the unique Broadway manufacturing of Chicago. Rivera had a small position within the 2002 movie model, whereas Catherine Zeta-Jones received the perfect supporting actress Oscar as Velma — simply as Rita Moreno had picked up an Oscar for her portrayal of Anita in West Side Story.
The songwriters for Chicago, Kander and Ebb, additionally wrote Rivera’s first Tony-winning efficiency, for The Rink. In profitable the Tony for finest actress in a musical, Rivera topped the present’s prime star, Liza Minnelli, who additionally had been nominated. The two performed a mom and daughter who battle to rebuild their relationship after an extended estrangement; the setting is an old school curler rink that has seen higher days.
Robert De Niro, Chita Rivera and Liza Minnelli circa 1984 in New York City.
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Spider Woman had been her first Broadway present since 1986, when she suffered a damaged leg within the visitors accident whereas she was showing in Jerry’s Girls, a Broadway tribute to the songs of Jerry Herman.
At the Tony awards a number of weeks later, she flashed her forged and belted out Put on a Happy Face from the musical Bye, Bye, Birdie.
It took months of bodily remedy to deliver again her dancing expertise. She instructed The Associated Press: “It never entered my mind that I wouldn’t dance again. Never. I can’t explain to you why. It’s hard work getting back but that’s what I’m doing.”
“My spirit is still there.”
Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero was born Jan. 23, 1933, in Washington, D.C. Her Puerto Rican father, Pedro del Rivero, was a musician who performed within the United States Navy Band, who died when she was 7. Her mom was Scottish and Italian descent.
She took dance lessons after which entered the distinguished School of American Ballet in New York. Her first theater gig, at age 17, was within the touring firm of Call Me Madam. That led to refrain stints in such exhibits as Guys and Dolls and Can-Can.
In her 2023 memoir, Chita: A Memoir, one other lady steals scene after scene: her self-proclaimed alter ego, Dolores. Unapologetic and fiery, Dolores was the unfiltered model of Chita and served as motivation in instances of self-doubt. In one chapter, Rivera writes that she doesn’t learn critiques “or Dolores just might invest in a dozen voodoo dolls.”
“I consist of — and I think we all do — I consist of two people: Dolores and Conchita,” Rivera sain in an interview with the AP that 12 months. “Conchita, she’s the one that has been taking all the glory, you know. She’s been doing all the shows, but Dolores is the one that’s pushed her into it. And she’s been keeping me on track, so I listen to Dolores. I listen to her. She’s growing in my head now as we speak.”
Among different early appearances on the New York stage had been roles in The Shoestring Revue, 1955; a 1955 musical model of Seventh Heaven starring Ricardo Montalban; and Mr. Wonderful, a 1956 present starring Sammy Davis Jr.
“I can’t believe that I’ve been given the gift to look back and relive my life,” she instructed The Associated Press shortly earlier than The Dancer’s Life opened on Broadway in late 2005. “It’s about how anybody can do it — if you really believe it, you have the good fortune, you do all the right things and you really work hard.”
Rivera, who had a relationship with the now-deceased Davis, married fellow West Side Story performer Tony Mordente in 1957. The marriage resulted in divorce. Their daughter, Lisa Mordente, additionally grew to become a performer who often appeared on Broadway, garnering a Tony nomination in 1982 for Marlowe.
