Chita Rivera is an American actress, dancer, and singer best known for her roles in musical theatre. She is the first Hispanic woman and the first Latino American to receive a Kennedy Center Honors award (December 2002). She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
Background
Conchita Figueroa del Rivero was born in Washington, D.C., on January 23,1933. Her Puerto Rican father, Pedro Julio Figueroa, was a professional musician who played saxophone and clarinet. He died when Rivera was seven years old. Her mother, Katherine Anderson del Rivero, worked for the federal government as a clerk. Rivera, who has four other siblings, demonstrated an early interest in arts and as a child complemented her piano and dancing classes by staging her own shows at home.
Education
Her dancing abilities were so great that her dancing teacher encouraged Rivera to apply for a ballet scholarship at the Balanchine School of American Ballet in New York City when she was 15. She had a stellar audition and received the scholarship. She moved from Washington to New York and lived with an uncle in the Bronx, where she studied at Taft High School. On graduation in 1952, she attended Balanchine's School of American Ballet full-time.
Career
The woman who has been described by Newsweek as "a one-woman dance marathon" started her Broadway career shortly after finishing high school and immediately became one of Broadways best-regarded dancers during the 1950s (Peyser 1993). Rivera, who changed her artistic name from Conchita to Chita at the beginning of her career, has never been typecast as a Latina. Even though she is a woman of Puerto Rican ancestiy, Rivera has played a wide range of roles since her first Broadway performances. Her first professional dancing job was in Irving Berlin's musical Call Me Madam, choreographed by Jerome Robbins. The show opened in 1952 and her dancing received excellent reviews. From there Rivera was chosen to be the lead dancer in Guys and Dolls and then was one the chorus girls in Can-Can (1953). Her roles were challenging and diverse and she ranged from Marilyn Monroe, in Shoestring Revieiv (1955) to a prostitute in Seventh Heaven (1957).
One of her biggest roles of all time was as Puerto Rican Anita in West Side Story (1957). The musical, written by Arthur Laurents, was a modernized take on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Staged by Jerome Robbins, scored by Leonard Bernstein, and with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story was about an impossible love story amid the violent realities of gang fights in New York. Rivera appeared as the girlĀ¬friend of Bernardo, one of the gang leaders. She considers this her signature role (Horsfall 1996).
Her dynamic dancing and powerful singing, as revealed in the song "America," made of Rivera one of the best and most powerful supporting actresses and dancers in the musical. This role brought her first nomination for a Tony Award. During her participation in West Side Story, she married Anthony Mordente, another cast member, became pregnant, had a baby girl, Lisa, and rejoined the cast during the show's London tour. The English producers delayed the London opening until Lisa was born.
One of the interesting aspects of Rivera's career is her ability to work across different genres and media within the artistic realm. Throughout the 1970s, and in most of her artistic life, Chita was very active on the Broadway scene, alternating musical roles as actress, singer, and dancer. She also worked in television and developed her own cabaret acts. Her most important of works of the period were Wonderful (1956), Bye Bye Birdie (1960-1961), Zenda (1963), Bajour (1964), Threepenny Opera (1966), and Sweet Charity (1969). Her work on Bye Bye Birdie earned her another Tony nomination and she toured the United States with many of these productions. She also appeared as a guest on many classic television programs such as the Ed Sullivan Show and Sid Caesar's Show. In 1964, she appeared with the Beatles at a fundraiser in London. She played the role of Nikki in the film version of her Broadway hit Sweet Charity in 1969. Although the film was not well received by critics, she received stellar reviews for her role. America's television audiences also got an opportunity to watch Rivera in the role of Connie Richardson, a nosy neighbor, in the Dick Van Dyke Show during the 1973-1974 televison season.
Rivera has always been interested in transforming her Broadway performances and adapting them into cabarets acts. She has a warm artistic demeanor that charms the typically smaller cabaret audiences. In 1966 she toured the United States with a highly successful cabaret show. This show served as the basis for Chita Plus 2, a cabaret act created for her by Fred Ebb and Ron Field that opened to rave reviews in 1975. It was very successful in Las Vegas, London, and other cities.
Rivera's participation in the musical Chicago (1975) was her most important work during the 1970s. The show, which ran for more than two years on Broadway, depicts crime and debauchery in 1920s Chicago. Her role as Velma Kelly, her first as a criminal and villain, earned her another Tony nomination. The show was revived in 1998 but was cancelled after a short season; however, it became a successful film in 2003.
Despite Rivera's long list of accomplishments and successes, she did not receive a Tony Award until 1984. Her participation in the musical The Rink, with Liza Minelli, finally persuaded the critics that she was not only an accomplished singer and dancer but that she also had significant dramatic skills.
One of Rivera's most important roles to date was that of Aurora in the adaptation of Manuel Puig's novel Kiss of the Spider Woman, which opened in 1993. She earned her second Tony for her role as a 1950s movie idol idealized by an Argentinean prisoner who has visions of her in his jail cell. Rivera gave a breath-taking performance characterized not only by her powerful dancing but also by her dramatic flair. Her most recent work, Chita and All That Jazz (1996) was a retrospective work that included hits and numbers from her 40-year musical careei. The production, which showcased the multiple dimensions of her artistic talent, toured the United States and was extremely well received by the public and critics alike.
Despite having a serious car accident in 1986 that required the insertion of 12 screws on her leg, Rivera, a woman of incredible energy, recovered and has continued working with the same level of energy and enthusiasm, in1985 she was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and the School of American Ballet gave her a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992.
Member American Federation of television and Radio Artists, Screen Actors Guild, Actors Equity Association.
Personality
Rivera, an ardent liberal, has been involved in many Democratic causes. She is a highly professional woman who doesn't know when or where to stop. And as she said to the publication In Theater: "Of course: the best is yet to come"
Connections
Daughter of Pedro Julio Figuerva del Rivero. Married Anthony Mordente.