The three-time Tony Award-winning Broadway legend created indelible roles: Anita in West Side Story, Rose in Bye Bye Birdie and Velma Kelly in Chicago.<\/b>
\nChita Rivera, who appeared in more than 20 Broadway musicals over six decades has died, according to her daughter, Lisa Mordente. The three-time Tony Award-winning Broadway legend created indelible roles \u2014 Anita in West Side Story, Rose in Bye Bye Birdie, Velma Kelly in Chicago, and Aurora in Kiss of the Spiderwoman. She was 91.
Rivera \u00ab\u00a0was everything Broadway was meant to be,\u00a0\u00bb says Laurence Maslon, co-producer of the 2004 PBS series, Broadway: The American Musical. \u00ab\u00a0She was spontaneous and compelling and talented as hell for decades and decades on Broadway. Once you saw her, you never forgot her.\u00a0\u00bb
You might think Chita Rivera was a Broadway baby from childhood \u2013 but she wasn’t. Born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero in Washington, D.C., she told an audience at a Screen Actors Guild Foundation interview that she was a tomboy and drove her mother crazy: \u00ab\u00a0She said, ‘I’m putting you in ballet class so that we can rein in some of that energy.’ So I am very grateful.\u00a0\u00bb
Rivera took to ballet so completely that she got a full scholarship to the School of American Ballet in New York. But when she went with a friend to an audition for the tour of the Broadway show Call Me Madam, Rivera got the job. Goodbye ballet, hello Broadway. In 1957, she landed her breakout role, Anita in West Side Story, with a score by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim.
\u00ab\u00a0Hearing ‘America’ was just mind-boggling, with that rhythm,\u00a0\u00bb Rivera told NPR in 2007 for the musical’s 50th anniversary. \u00ab\u00a0I just couldn’t wait to do it. It was such a challenge. And, being Latin, you know, it was a welcoming sound.\u00a0\u00bb
West Side Story allowed Rivera to reveal not only her athletic dancing chops, but her acting and singing chops. She recalls Leonard Bernstein teaching her the score himself: \u00ab\u00a0I remember sitting next to Lenny and his starting with ‘A Boy Like That,’ teaching it to me and me saying, ‘I’ll never do this, I can’t hit those notes, I don’t know how to hit those notes.’ \u00ab\u00a0
But she did hit them, and being able to sing, act and dance made her a valuable Broadway commodity, said Maslon. \u00ab\u00a0She was the first great triple threat. Broadway directors like Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse saw the need to have performers who could do all three things and do them really well.\u00a0\u00bb
And, from 1960 to 2013, she headlined some big hits \u2014 as well as some major flops. In 1986, Rivera was in a serious taxi accident. Her left leg was shattered, and the doctors said she’d never dance again, but she did \u2013 just differently.
\u00ab\u00a0We all have to be realistic,\u00a0\u00bb she told NPR in 2005. \u00ab\u00a0I don’t do flying splits anymore. I don’t do back flips and all the stuff that I used to do. You want to know something? I don’t want to.\u00a0\u00bb
But her stardom never diminished. And the accolades flowed: she won several Tony Awards, including one for lifetime achievement, a Kennedy Center honor, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Rivera didn’t do much television or film \u2013 she was completely devoted to the stage, says Maslon.
\u00ab\u00a0That’s why they’re called Broadway legends,\u00a0\u00bb he says. \u00ab\u00a0Hopefully you get to see them live because you’ll never get to see them in another form in quite the same way.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n