Rita Moreno: A Memoir (26 page)

In the moody atmosphere of that chilly seacoast village, we continued as best we could. The entire cast and crew soon became disconsolate in the isolated beach-cottage set, where we
were being fed an endless diet of Dover sole at the hotel. I tried to hold cozy dinners for the cast to alleviate the tension, but something always seemed to go wrong. One night, I asked the hotel to have an Italian pasta dinner for a change. They presented us all with huge bowls of spaghetti—and a giant bottle of ketchup. It was back to Dover sole after that.

Matters improved when my husband and Fernanda arrived, but the worst was yet to come: the love/fight scene that I had to play with Marlon. The scene is quite graphic. I have always been uncomfortable with the idea of doing nude scenes. I’ve never performed in the buff, but this particular scene required me to appear naked from the back. So beneath my robe I taped a tea towel to the front of my body.

As the scene begins, my character—who is high on heroin—is seething with anger. She believes her lover has cheated on her, so she slaps him. Now, I personally detest violence, even in make-believe. I am loath to hit or harm anyone. In rehearsal, Marlon insisted that we improvise the scene, as he disliked the script. He also coached me to hit him hard enough to make the slap believable. The director called, “Action!” and I drew back and slapped Marlon with resolve. What followed was not improvisation, but revelation, as his pure, primal instincts transformed Marlon into a wounded, vengeful animal. And as if in suspended animation, I saw his face change; his eyebrows pulled up, and his usually narrow eyes opened fully. It was a look of incredulity. I had hit him. Rita Moreno challenged
the
Marlon Brando. With a you-don’t-do-this-to-me look in his eyes, he hauled off and slammed me with the full force of his powerful arm and open hand. I saw sparkles of light from the force of the blow, and the energy knocked me backward. I felt stunned, then enraged. As the synapses of my brain reconnected, old wounds, hurts, resentment, and disrespect
coursed through my body. The festering decay rose like pond scum to the surface, and Rita Moreno emerged as the offended lover. I went ballistic, insane, crazy, and I unleashed both shrieks and punches fueled by the accelerant of rage stored somewhere deep within me. Marlon, with raised forearms, defended himself in the boxer’s defensive pose. The camera kept rolling, and the entire uncut, unaltered scene remains intact. There is much commentary online about how this one scene is the most authentic.

The director always allowed us to review the dailies, the scenes shot the previous day. That evening, I related to Lenny what happened on the set. I did not want to see myself displaying such raw emotion, so I asked Lenny to check out the dailies for me. When he returned, he said, “Wow, you two were very, very good.” My sweet husband!

*   *   *

The sphere of privacy that Marlon inhabited was quickly invaded after his death by a frenzied press. To their surprise, only one photograph hung in his home, and it was in his bedroom. The photo portrays two lovers embracing: she with naked back to the camera, he caressing her while looking longingly into her eyes. It was the picture taken of us following our volcanic confrontation on film. How could I have known that the feeling expressed in those eyes would linger to the end of his life?

I heard sometime later that the photo was sold when items from his estate were auctioned off, its price set by the highest bidder. But only I know its true value.

*   *   *

Good movie roles came fewer and farther apart as I approached forty. Then, in 1969, I lucked out and landed the female lead in
Popi.
In this movie, the wonderfully diverse actor Alan Arkin played a Puerto Rican father at a loss about what to do with his children to save them from poverty. He schemes to take them out of New York City and send them by boat to the coast off Miami, Florida, so that the boys will be mistaken for Cubans and given asylum.

I played Alan’s girlfriend, Lupe, whose racial identity remains unspecified in the movie.
Popi
was a true pleasure, as Alan was such a gifted actor—except for one uncomfortable scene. It’s the part of the movie where Alan and I are supposed to be making love in bed—or rather, Popi and Lupe. We were totally “into” our roles (only in a professional manner, of course) when Alan’s real-life wife dropped by to visit. She said, “Hi, oh, my gawd!” and started toward the exit.

Alan jumped out of bed, standing at full attention in his boxers and socks. “Dana, I’d like you to meet Rita, Rita Moreno,” he said.

She was mumbling, “I’m so sorry, I…ah…didn’t mean to interrupt….”

By this time, I had pulled the thin sheet up to my nose to help hide my mortification. I whispered a sheepish, “Hi,” but she continued to mutter her apology for interrupting the scene, then disappeared off the set.

Alan was as embarrassed as I. And speechless!

The backstory: Both of us were quite modest. Under those sheets I was wearing dime-store bloomers, gym socks, and falsies double-taped to my breasts for cover. But it had taken both of us at least an hour to become comfortable enough with each other to do the scene. The mood had become impotent,
actus interruptus.

Note to self: Spouses of actors should
never, ever
drop in uninvited.

*   *   *

I had my own marital movie crisis a year later, when the opportunity arose for me to play a role in the movie
Carnal Knowledge
. The script called for my character, a hooker named Louise, to orally arouse Jack Nicholson’s chacter, Jonathan. Lenny objected emphatically.

But I proceeded to make a case for the importance of this work: that it was not written to appeal to prurient interests, but to expose how men in America objectify women.

I went to meet director Mike Nichols at his apartment, and any hesitation I might have had after Lenny’s strong expression of disapproval was banished on the spot. Nichols wouldn’t let me leave until I’d promised to play Louise, who is the last stop on Jonathan’s sexual odyssey in the movie.

I loved the part, in truth. Louise was a hooker, yes, but the part was so well written that I could see a lot of potential depth in the role. Is Louise hating Jonathan while placating him? How cynical is her expertise? (Quite!)

Louise’s lines, a ritual speech to arouse him, are fascinating, at once literary and abject. In a way, Louise was the highest-evolved form of the subservient slave girls I had played from the start of my career: We had grown up together. How could I resist playing a part like this?

No actor could have walked away from that role, not under Mike Nichols’s direction and that cast: Jack Nicholson, Candice Bergen, Art Garfunkel, and Ann-Margret. Certainly not when the script was written by Jules Feiffer, for a movie that everyone expected to be an important and controversial picture. Which it was—
Carnal Knowledge
charted male sexuality in a way it had never been done before.

So what if it meant that I had to play a whore and feign pleasuring Jack Nicholson with oral sex for take after take? This was the greatest whore part ever written for the movies, and I got to end the movie with the ultimate line: “It’s up in the air.”

During our famous scene together, Louise coaxes Jonathan into an erection. His misspent youth was integral to the movie’s theme: that a man could go so wrong with his carnal desire that he would have to, in the end, be serviced and lose all opportunities for true love and happiness. By not allowing women to be equal, he ended up degrading himself as well.

In my mind, there was no question that Louise held him in bitter control: It is she who is in charge. I couldn’t wait to play her!

The scene, rich with symbolism, was performed on a hydraulic lift. I had only one place to find motivation as I spoke squarely into the cold, opaque blackness of the lens—in Jonathan’s eyes as I lured him into arousal. All this while the platform is inching downward. It required the presence of Jack, in character, lying nearby, to provide the necessary inspiration for me. Which he did, happily. I became exhausted mentally and physically as I “became” Louise, who appears to be descending endlessly.

Jack Nicholson was the most obliging of costars. Without him grinning and leering at me off camera, I don’t think I could have done as well.

That set turned out to be one of the more miserable movie sets I have entered, and the chilliest of backstages. I felt the weight of having disappointed my husband, who had deep reservations about the morality of the screenplay. Emotionally, I had moved to Siberia.

We rehearsed and rehearsed, and Mike Nichols kept saying, “Don’t act; keep it real.” He said that I was Louise—and “Louise
is a hooker.” That didn’t feel good. In addition, shooting the fellatio scene took thirty takes, because Mike wanted that sexual scene in one continuous shot—no pauses. This was the first time I had been involved in making a film that was shot in continuity. It is a rare style of filmmaking. It is common to shoot all the scenes that occur in one location at the same time in that location or setting. This avoids moving around excessively, and is time-saving and efficient. But in order to build an ever-intensifying neurosis in his characters, Mike shot every scene in sequence. By the time I had arrived, I sensed that the toxicity of the characters had seeped into the psyches of some of the players.

It was a grueling experience, and an isolating one, too. Three days into making the movie, I had yet to share a meal with anyone in the company. I was missing Lenny and Fernanda, and I was damn lonely. I hated feeling like a pariah.

I assumed that it was just by chance that I hadn’t shared a meal with any of my coworkers, which happens all the time on location. So, hearing Mike, Jack, and Art talking about dinner plans in my presence, I said, “Hey, I’ve been here three days and I haven’t had dinner with anybody.” I can now see how my self-invite could have been off-putting to them, but not being included didn’t seem cordial to me.

Feeling obliged, Mike instantly asked me along that evening. I shared the most uncomfortable, chilliest dinner of my life. But it was not Rita who attended that dinner. It was Rosita. Seated at their table, I reverted to that demure, insecure little girl who didn’t belong. And I could endure that dinner only by forcing myself to think about the positive aspects of my life with every self-conscious bite. Oh, to be back home with my family.

BIG BIRD,
THE ELECTRIC COMPANY
, AND ME

D
uring those first few years with Fernanda, it seemed like Lenny and I had created the perfect kind of marriage to raise a baby. I was happy to finally have a family to call my own, and content to feel settled for the first time in my life. And Lenny was euphoric in the way only a forty-seven-year-old first-time father of an exquisite baby girl can be.

Our love and marriage were embodied in Fernanda: We had “made” her, and she had made us feel happy and complete. We could watch her for hours as she found her little fingers and toes, learned to smile and sit up on her own, started walking, and then—very soon—dancing. Fernanda was dancing almost as soon as she could walk.

We had a beautiful place to live, too: an eight-room apartment in a landmark building on Manhattan’s West Side. Ironically,
it was just a hundred blocks from the Spanish ghetto where my mother brought me when we left Puerto Rico.

When Fernanda was a little toddler, I wanted to encourage the creative side of her, whatever it would be. I would engage her in making collages with beans, lentils, and peas. We’d get glue and put the beans on pieces of cardboard, making pretty designs. We would draw together, too. She loved that.

There was something that Fernanda always did that knocked me out. It started one day, when she was very little, even before she could talk, she got really upset one day.

“Do you think you need a little mothering?” I asked.

Fernanda just nodded up at me with her big eyes.

I had a rocker in her room, so I picked her up, sat down in the rocker with her, and began to stroke her hair, hug her, kiss her, and sing to her. I had Spanish albums with children’s songs, and some in English, too. Always after that, whenever Fernanda felt insecure or unhappy, she would say, “I think I need some mothering,” and I’d say, “You got it kid,” and I’d sit her on my lap and rock her.

Oh, how we loved her, Lenny and I! When Fernanda was ready to go to first grade, we couldn’t stand letting her out of our sight. So the first month or so that Fernanda had to get on the bus to go to school, we’d follow her. (You’d never think to put a child of almost any age on a city bus to go anywhere these days, but back then it was how every child went to school in New York.) We didn’t want her to know it, though, so Lenny would park his car around the corner, and after I put Fernanda on the bus, we’d get in his car and follow the bus all the way to school, just to know that our beloved daughter was safe.

Fernanda used to bring friends home from school, and I think I had as much fun as the girls did. I used to make a tent for
them by covering the bridge table with a sheet, and Fernanda and her friends would hold their little club meetings there. She called it the PBS Club, which stood for Plays, Ballets, and Spooks.

Fernanda wanted to be a ballet dancer. Lenny and I told her that, if she did her homework, she could take classes at the New York City Ballet, so she did. She became a ballerina and loved it. At a different dance school, there was one especially wonderful dance class where the children were encouraged to move any way they wanted. The teacher would say, “Pretend you’re a rubber band. Now start dancing!”

I’d watch that class and think,
Oh, man, this is lovely. I wish I’d had that freedom of expression in my dance classes.

We took Fernanda to museums, plays, and concerts. She loved Gilbert and Sullivan, even at a young age, and later, when she started to draw more seriously, she took classes at the Museum of Modern Art. She became a wonderful painter, and now she makes beautiful jewelry. I like to think that we set the stage for her to express her true self, as she found joy in creativity any way she wanted to express it.