From recollections of her love affairs with Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley, to tales of indomitable persistence and activism, topped off with song, Rita Moreno encapsulated her life and career in a riveting performance at Lesley's Boston Speakers Series on Wednesday night, earning whistles and two standing ovations.
Moreno took the Symphony Hall stage and twirled
around to display her glittering, bright ensemble.
Moreno, who soon turns 85, took the Symphony Hall stage and immediately strode to the foreground to twirl around and display her glittering black jumpsuit, red blazer, and strappy, red high heels.
"The women always want to see what you're wearing," she quipped.
A natural storyteller, she began by talking about her early childhood in Puerto Rico and her emigration at age 5 with her mother to New York City, in 1936.
They lived in poverty, crammed into an apartment with three other families in the Bronx, where she would lie on the fire escape, close her eyes, and dream of becoming "somebody special," she said. "I wanted so badly to be somebody. ... My greatest longing, my dream, was to be in the show business."
Moreno and her mother arrived in New York "before the Puerto Rican diaspora," she noted, and encountered a scary place where people hurled racist slurs at them.
"I was living reverse 'Wizard of Oz,'" she said, going from a "technicolor" life in Puerto Rico, to cold and gray New York. "It was the first time I ever saw trees without leaves. ... Nothing prepared me for the reaction of people. Suddenly I was different. For the rest of my youth and my career I was forced to navigate the uncharted waters of diversity."
The young outsider and dreamer has gone on to work for seven decades in film, television and theater. Moreno has won two Emmys, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony - one of only 12 actors who have won all four major awards - accolades that belie the struggles of a spirit that does not surrender.
"When I won an Oscar, other actors said they felt the door was opened for them," said Moreno, whose film credits include "Singin' in the Rain" in 1952 and "West Side Story" in 1961. Other notable roles include opera singer Maria Callas in the play "Master Class," Amanda Wingfield in "The Glass Menagerie," and a main cast member on the PBS children's series "The Electric Company" in the 1970s.
"Hope is having the music of the future," she said. "Faith is dancing to it now."
Humor and resilience
On the boat ride from Puerto Rico, a young Moreno remembers spotting the Statue of Liberty - "that green lady holding the biggest ice cream cone."
“Hope is having the music of the future. Faith is dancing to it
now,” Moreno said.
She joked about her culture, and the way her mother's accent embarrassed her when she said words like "sheets," "beach" and "peace." She recalled the "exotic foods" she encountered on her first movie sets such as roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy.
She credited her mother, "a sweatshop seamstress," with understanding Moreno's passion and sacrificing for her.
"Like many immigrant mothers, she spent all of her time getting by while encouraging me to reach for the stars," she said.
Moreno quit school at 16 and started touring on the vaudeville circuit, performing as a "Spanish dancer." She was discovered at 17 by Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM studios), and tried to emulate Elizabeth Taylor's look for her meeting with studio head Louis Mayer.
"I mean, there were no Latina role models. None. Zilch," she said, recalling that Mayer took one look at her and exclaimed, "Why, she looks like a Spanish Liz Taylor!"
During her MGM contract, she was "cast in every ethnic role," from Polynesian to American Indian, which she refers to as the "dusky maiden roles" in which the characters were objectified and portrayed as ignorant and subservient. But she savored visiting the studio sets and seeing stars like Humphrey Bogart, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland.
In 1961, she played Anita in "West Side Story," a transformative role for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
"I had never been given the opportunity to play a woman who stood up for herself," said Moreno. "She was real. She was Puerto Rican. Just like her, I ran down the streets in fear, chased by that awful word, 'Spic.'"
In spite of successes, she weathered lulls in her career and stubborn discrimination. She experienced a 10-year gap in film acting after "The Four Seasons" in 1981 with Alan Alda and Carol Burnett, and once she was finally invited to audition for a film role again, in her 60s, it turned out to be "a Mexican whorehouse madam." She refused it at the audition, and she was crushed.
Resilience and determination are lessons "to practice and work on for a lifetime," said Moreno, who went on to earn the Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors.
'Let the music play, as long as there's a song to sing'
Moreno dished on a years-long affair with actor Marlon Brando, and recalled their first encounter when she was just 23.
"Coincidentally I stuck my head in the makeup room, and Marlon Brando, there he was," she said with a smile. "That room became so hot, even the walls started to sweat. I was head over heels, heels over head."
Moreno gathered with Lesley professors Liv Cummins (left) and
Lisa Fiore (right) in Symphony Hall after the lecture.
When she discovered he was cheating - "apparently I was not enough for him. The man needed a harem" - she started dating Elvis Presley. Brando found out, and became enraged.
"Even before social media, the world knew when you went out," she said.
After that, she met and soon thereafter married a non-entertainer, Lenny Gordon.
"He was a very nice, Jewish doctor. That's redundant," she cracked. "I didn't have much experience with kind men, I didn't know what the hell to do with him."
And through the ups and downs in her career and personal life, Moreno said service and activism have been a constant. She recalled important life events such as the March on Washington, at which she was 15 feet from Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I began to see myself as part of a bigger picture," said Moreno, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004. "The more I worked for causes greater than myself, the less I was wrapped up in my own troubles."
She says she's enjoying the "third act of my life." She's had roles in more recent series, such as "Oz" and "Jane the Virgin," and she is in a new Netflix series, "One Day at a Time" that is set to debut in 2017.
During her presentation, she sang "Dream (When You're Feeling Blue)" and "This is All I Ask," and she concluded her talk by serenading the rapt audience with the following lines:
"And let the music play
As long as there's a song to sing
And I will stay younger
Younger than Spring"