Chita Rivera, the dynamic dancer, singer and actor who garnered 10 Tony nominations, winning twice, in a long Broadway career that forged a path for Latina artists and shrugged off a near-fatal car accident, passed away on Tuesday. She was 91. Rivera's death was announced by her daughter, Lisa Mordente, who said she passed in New York after a brief illness.
Rivera first gained wide notice in 1957 as Anita in the original production of West Side Story and was still dancing on Broadway with her trademark energy a half-century later in 2015’s The Visit. "I wouldn't know what to do if I wasn't moving or telling a story to you or singing a song," she told media sources 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 highest honour the US can give a civilian. Rivera put her hand over her heart and said she shook her head in wonderment as President Barack Obama presented the medal. In 2013, she was the marshal at the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City.
“She was a true Broadway legend,” playwright Paul Rudnick said on X, formerly Twitter. “She always delivered and audiences adored her. The moment she stepped onstage, the world became more exciting and glorious.”
Rivera rose from chorus girl to star, collaborating along the way with many of Broadway’s greatest talents, including 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 car accident in 1988 that crushed her right leg and became an indefatigable star on the road. She was on Broadway in a raucous production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood in 2012 and the chilly The Visit in 2014, earning another Best Actress Tony nomination. “She can’t rehearse except for full-out,” said 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% for that audience.”
She won 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 said “I wouldn’t trade my life in the theatre for anything, because theatre is life.”
She was nominated for the award seven other times, 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 told the media in 2012. “I know I’m being old-fashioned, but the theatre 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 did. They take you places and they’re daring. That’s what we need.”
Her albums include 16 tracks pulled from her original cast recordings and put out as part of Sony’s Legends of Broadway series and two solo CDs — And Now I Sing for a tiny record label in the 1960s and And Now I Swing in 2009 for Yellow Sound Label.
In the 1993 musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, Rivera played the title role, a glamorous movie star at the centre of the fantasy life of an inmate in a South American prison. The story, from a novel by Manuel Puig, had already been made into an Oscar-winning 1985 movie.
In 1975, she originated the role of Velma Kelly (to Gwen Verdon’s Roxie Hart) in the original Broadway production of Chicago. Rivera had a small role in the 2002 film version, while Catherine Zeta-Jones won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar as Velma — just as Rita Moreno had picked up an Oscar for her portrayal of Anita in West Side Story.
The songwriters for Chicago, Kander and Ebb, also wrote Rivera’s first Tony-winning performance, for The Rink. In winning the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical, Rivera topped the show’s top star, Liza Minnelli, who also had been nominated. The two played a mother and daughter who struggle to rebuild their relationship after a long estrangement; the setting is an old-fashioned roller rink that has seen better days.
Spider Woman had been her first Broadway show since 1986 when she suffered a broken leg in a traffic accident while she was appearing in “Jerry’s Girls,” a Broadway tribute to the songs of Jerry Herman. At the Tony Awards a few weeks later, she flashed her cast and belted out “Put on a Happy Face” from the musical Bye, Bye, Birdie.
It took months of physical therapy to bring back her dancing skills. She told sources, “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.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Broadway songwriter and performer, featured Rivera in a scene in his 2021 film adaptation of Tick, Tick... Boom, and in a statement said having her included "remains one of the all-time joys of my life.”
Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero was born on Jan. 23, 1933, in Washington, D.C. Her Puerto Rican father, Pedro del Rivero, was a musician who played in the United States Navy Band, who died when she was 7. Her mother was of Scottish and Italian descent.
She took dance classes and then entered the prestigious School of American Ballet in New York. Her first theatre gig, at age 17, was in the touring company of Call Me Madam. That led to chorus stints in such shows as Guys and Dolls and Can-Can.
In her 2023 memoir, Chita: A Memoir, another woman steals scene after scene: her self-proclaimed alter ego, Dolores. Unapologetic and fiery, Dolores was the unfiltered version of Chita and served as motivation in times of self-doubt. In one chapter, Rivera writes that she doesn’t read reviews “or Dolores just might invest in a dozen voodoo dolls.”
Rivera, who had a relationship with the now-deceased Davis, married fellow West Side Story performer Tony Mordente in 1957. The marriage ended in divorce. Their daughter, Lisa Mordente, also became a performer who occasionally appeared on Broadway, garnering a Tony nomination in 1982 for Marlowe.
Among those honouring Rivera on social media were actor Jason Alexander, who said “She set the bar in every way,” and actor and dancer Debbie Allen, who wrote: “I will miss touching you, but I will forever hear your laughter and hold that baton of power you tossed my way.”