{"id":2934,"date":"2024-01-31T15:11:08","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T15:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/31\/broadway-legend-chita-rivera-was-a-triple-threat-a-trailblazer-and-a-hoot\/"},"modified":"2024-01-31T15:11:08","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T15:11:08","slug":"broadway-legend-chita-rivera-was-a-triple-threat-a-trailblazer-and-a-hoot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/31\/broadway-legend-chita-rivera-was-a-triple-threat-a-trailblazer-and-a-hoot\/","title":{"rendered":"Broadway legend Chita Rivera was a triple threat, a trailblazer \u2013 and a hoot"},"content":{"rendered":"

The actor, dancer and singer, who has died aged 91<\/a>, did not just provide great entertainment on stage. She was an eloquent, mischievous chronicler of musical theatre<\/p>\n

Chita Rivera had been answering questions about West Side Story for some 60 years when yet another journalist called her up to hear the story<\/a>. You could have forgiven this indomitable triple-threat star \u2013 celebrated for her singing, acting and dancing \u2013 for going through the motions in a 15-minute phone interview. But seconds into what would be the first of a few conversations we had over the years, it was clear she\u2019d be a hoot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love that accent!\u201d she mock-purred with a laugh before recalling the thick Manchester fog when she brought the show over in 1958. She was an anglophile and had happy memories of the show\u2019s London run, where she resumed the role of Anita. She\u2019d recently given birth to Lisa, lovingly described as her \u201cShark-Jet daughter\u201d: Chita\u2019s husband was Tony Mordente, who played one of the Jets, while Anita was with the Sharks. The gangs had rehearsed separately for the show in order to heighten tensions on stage \u2013 \u201ca phenomenal idea\u201d from choreographer Jerome Robbins \u2013 so they\u2019d tried to keep their romance secret. She brought a maternal quality to Anita\u2019s friendship with Maria but Rivera loved how saucy and passionate the character is too.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The actor, dancer and singer, who has died aged 91, did not just provide great entertainment on stage. She was an eloquent, mischievous chronicler of musical theatre Chita Rivera had been answering questions about West Side Story for some 60 years when yet another journalist called her up to hear the story. You could have … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}