Rita Moreno: A Memoir (7 page)

AMERICAN DREAM

M
y mother’s friend admired my impromptu pirouettes and said, “Why don’t you send Rosita for dance lessons?”

How old was I? Six? I was still in my own world, but I loved music, and I spun a solo spiral course around that tiny studio apartment. Such potential talent was rewarded, and my mother and her girlfriend, who had “connections,” enrolled me to study with an authentic “Spanish from Spain” dance teacher. “Spanish from Spain” was a serious distinction. It meant not Puerto Rican or Cuban or Mexican. “Spanish from Spain” meant the ultimate Hispanic caste. “Spanish from Spain” meant he would speak the cultivated dialect very different from Puerto Rican Spanish—Castilian Spanish, complete with the elegant lisp. “Spanish from Spain” was also something of a racial distinction: Puerto Ricans came in a myriad of races and skin colors—fair, golden, tan, dark
brown, black; Spaniards from Spain were white, very white. I don’t know whether Puerto Ricans themselves held this as a slight prejudice, but being a “Spaniard from Spain” was definitely regarded as an haute category.

We traveled by subway to the dance studio of Paco Cansino. By luck, I was to learn Spanish dance from a master, a member of Spanish dance royalty. Paco Cansino was not only a Spanish dance teacher; he was the ultimate Spanish dance teacher. He was the teacher and uncle of Rita Hayworth. Rita was originally Margarita Carmen Cansino, a direct descendant of one of the great Spanish dancers of all time.

Rita Hayworth was a Brooklyn-born, half–“Spanish from Spain,” half-English girl who made it all the way to Hollywood, where they used electrolysis to raise her hairline substantially in order to broaden her forehead. The studio beauticians dyed her black hair red. She was the daughter of a famous dancer, and the granddaughter of an even more famous Spanish dancer, Edward of Seville, who invented the bolero.

To an eerie extent, I would follow in Rita’s footsteps—not only becoming her namesake, but also a professional child dancer. And I too would drop out of school and then become a movie actress.

Of course, Rita Hayworth also became an idol, a goddess, a bona fide star, who married the Prince Aly Khan. Many years later, I was invited by an Arabian sultan to lunch at his palace in Malaysia. But it was a case of mistaken identity. The aging sultan mistook me for Hayworth and asked after Princess Yasmin: “And how is Princess Yasmin?” I hesitated, then thought, Why spoil his fun? Make him look foolish? And when would I get another chance to dine in a palace?

“They’re fine,” I told him.

Rita Hayworth was my inspiration, and her influence on my life was everlasting; her uncle Paco’s instruction and impact were profound. Together they changed the course of my young life.

The trip to Paco Cansino’s studio started this journey…. For my first foray into “show business,” my mother, her girlfriend, and I took the subway down to West 57th Street. The Paco Cansino School of Dance was in what could be called the “Capezio District,” home to many dance schools, rehearsal halls, and costume and slipper shops. Just riding the elevator in the Carnegie Hall complex was a trip into the new world I would long to inhabit. I could hear opera singers practicing their scales—“La, la…la…
la
!”—and the sound of pianos playing and
tap-tap-tappy
tap dancers’ footfalls echoing through the building. From every floor, from behind every door came the music, the singing, the rhythmic tapping of feet. And from a small door at the far end of the hall, drowning out the rest, came the rapid
boom-boom-boom
of conga drums. My heart began to beat in time.

The Paco Cansino School of Dance was housed in one large, bare, and very dusty studio. Paco was the sole teacher, but what a teacher he was! He was a tiny, almost child-size man, not much bigger than me, but with perfect posture, who affected the “Spanish from Spain” look: slicked-back black hair with long sideburns. His thin, narrow-hipped dancer’s body was always costumed for class in a formal suit (always the same suit, and it had picked up the musty smell of the studio), cordobes hat, and boots, with heels that could really echo.

When I danced with Paco Cansino in performance, he wore the full regalia: cordobes hat, vest, shirt, fitted pants, and those Spanish boots that would raise a dust cloud when his heels struck the floor.

As Paco had instructed the goddess Rita Hayworth, so he was
“grooming” me. Paco was a classic Spanish dancer, meaning he seemed to direct his attention to his derrière or his armpit when he danced. His dark eyes were piercing, his angular jaw tightly clenched. He seldom varied his fierce expression, made even fiercer by the shadow of his cordobes hat and long sideburns.

He led me around his dance studio, as serious and stylized as a bullfighter. Paco had perfected his
“gesto,”
the Spanish attitude—all thrust and angle from his chin to his heels: severe desire, controlled fury, the click of his heel and castanets. This was pure passion, reined in by prescribed dance moves. Paco taught me the classic sevillanas, the national dance of Spain. He led me around and around and straight ahead and danced me straight into my future.

When I was only nine, Paco Cansino decreed that I was ready. He booked me with him for my first theatrical professional engagement in a Greenwich Village nightclub. My mother came with me, carrying my costume in a bag; we rode the subway down to the Village. Inside, the club was dark with smoke, and the smell of whiskey integrated into the atmosphere. My mother and I hurried backstage to prepare for my debut.

I changed into my costume in a small dressing room; I remember peeing in the sink, for lack of the usual facility. For the first time I donned the traditional Spanish dance costume lovingly made by my mother: full ruffled skirts and embroidered blouse, combs and flowers in my hair. I got to wear powder, lipstick, rouge, and eyeliner. I was ecstatic. My mother stood back and sighed. When I looked in the little corroded mirror, I saw a new Rosita—so much more beautiful than the one I had always been….

Backstage may have been tacky, even sordid, but the stage was elevated by a one-foot riser and an immeasurable distance of
emotional height. From the instant my foot touched that stage and I began to move to the music and spin around with Paco, I knew I had landed: The spotlight warmed me, and I felt the admiration from the audience (or imagined that I did). I basked under the lights and in an unfamiliar sensation: pure joy. There was no stage fright—I was dancing, doing what I loved.

I shivered with delight at the musical flourish and the nightclub owner’s introduction: “
Damas y Caballeros, ahora dirigida del gran Paco Cansino, aquí: Rosita Alverio!”

It is just as well I couldn’t see past the lights—the “audience” was probably a roomful of inebriated men and my beaming mother. And they all applauded. I stood for my first bow, aglow, radiant in the spotlight I wished to remain in forever. Who needed school? This was what I wanted to do—forever and ever!

PAPO

M
eanwhile, my mother searched for love—clad in home-sewn dresses tight against her curves, displaying her ample cleavage—looking for a new husband who could “protect” us. She found the first of the next four “husband protectors” quite soon.

I remember the addition of a larger bed, and the earlier and earlier extinguishing of lights. And my mami’s new, strange ceremonies with love potions and candles. I was sent on love potion runs to the botanica, where a cronelike creature lurked in the shadows, her gnarled vegetable roots hanging overhead, twisted, tuberous, and hairy.

This woman had powers and supplies to implement them. I was very frightened of her, and even in the dark of her shop, what I saw scared me—her glass eye and mustache—and I recoiled at the
strange, sour stink she emanated. I had to breathe through my mouth; the atmosphere in her shop was so foul. The witch woman muttered and frowned as she sorted through her collection of dead snakes and glass jars filled with suspicious-looking organs and objects, and filled a bag for my mother. I don’t know what I would have done if my mother had sent me on a snake run. As it was, the product I had to carry home was strange enough—one bag contained five horseflies, which I dutifully carried back to my mother.

Mami muttered an incantation and crushed the huge black flies into some coffee grounds. The next thing I knew, she had a gentleman caller who, unsuspecting, sipped the potion/coffee. We both watched, in suspense, to see whether this chubby mustached man would succumb—to love or worse. But all he did was leave and never come back. Soon there were other men, other cups of coffee, and soon my mami, Rosa Marcano, would marry again.

How old was I when my mother remarried? I think perhaps six years old. She found her “protector” quite soon. I don’t remember when I first saw Enrique, but I do remember my mother’s big German woman friend who worked with her in the factories, and who was always offering to “fix her up,” and I have a sense she was somehow responsible for Enrique coming into our lives. There was always talk of men when Marga would appear, brimming with cleavage and sensuous energy. Marga was in love with her own breasts. It was not difficult to imagine carnal acts when she sat down in my mother’s kitchen chair and raised her sweater to reveal her modest but perfectly round breasts, which featured small pink nipples. “Aren’t they marvelous?”

Yes, they were. I had never seen pink nipples before, and I
was transfixed. All the nipples I had previously seen were Puerto Rican nipples, which were brown. I studied my own nascent breasts and not yet extroverted nipples and felt sure they would be…brown. Which made Marga’s tiny pink rosebuds even more alluring.

Marga Linekin was a magnet for men, and I sensed that potential mates for my mother were drawn into her orbit, then skewered by my mother’s coy ways. No one could flirt like Rosa Maria: She would actually bat her eyes, tilt her head, and drop her voice to a sexual hush. When men appeared, she was all wonderment and whispered compliments. Of course, with this beguiling style, generous servings of homemade highly spiced food, and her own deep cleavage, she had many admirers. Not to mention the possible impact of love potions.

Soon enough, my new stepfather appeared—strawberry blond, blue-eyed, displaced Cuban Enrique. At this point, my mental time lapse takes effect and I have no memory of his arrival, only his presence for about seven years. “Papo,” as I called him, was a watchmaker. With a loupe to his eye and a steady hand, he repaired the intricate, delicate inner workings of precious timepieces. By necessity, he had developed infinite patience and a gentle touch. This made him an ideal stepfather.

One night, soon after his arrival, I walked into his and Mami’s bedroom and saw a project that he was working on in secret. It was big and covered with a cloth—I think so that I would not see it. I knew I was not supposed to be in the room, not supposed to see what was underneath. Of course I peeked—and I could not believe my eyes.

It was a perfect, beautiful Victorian dollhouse. I had never had such a happy shock. I almost fainted in my delirium. Could he have built this for me? He must have, bless Enrique. It was his
gift to me, this perfect dollhouse, complete with tiny Christmas lights that would flare on and illuminate the miniature rooms and their lavish little furnishings.

My mom walked into the room and caught me. “Aha!”

I turned the color of a tomato, and even now I can still feel that heat scald my face. It was my joy, my shock at the gift, and the embarrassment at being caught. I don’t think I ever blushed again; I used up my entire lifetime supply of blush in that one moment. I vowed never to be caught with a guilty face again.

For the rest of my childhood, I would gaze into the dollhouse, transfixed. In a way, I moved into Enrique’s dollhouse. It was so magical and safe inside. And I could control the tiny family who lived in the house: Mami, Papo, and Little Girl. This new life was beyond what I ever imagined, and for this time interval I believed in Mami again: She had found me a good Papo. She had done the right thing and she had found him—a protector. Once again Mami made me happy, and I could dance and sing and enjoy the miniature perfect world of the dollhouse and the watches Enrique repaired.

A happy home has its own music. The house hummed with Mami’s Singer sewing machine as she worked the foot treadle. This machine was so old, it was not an electric model. All the energy came from Mami, from her foot tapping and rising and falling. It sounded like the roll of a Spanish
rrrrrr!
As if in accompaniment, I danced in time with its pulsing, while Mami was creating headdresses and costumes for me. All the apprehension that had been in me since we left Juncos began to settle down and at last vanish. In its place came a contentment that was long-running enough to take for granted. All the time, there was so much happy music—not only Mami’s sewing machine, but we also had a windup phonograph that sounded so much like a cat in
heat when we wound it that we named it “
La Gatita
”—The Little Cat. Mami would sing along to the songs on the phonograph. She was singing and sewing; I was spinning and dancing. We bought fancier appliances, and Mami dressed them in her handmade slipcovers. Oh, I tell you it was a party again. It even smelled like Juncos—garlic, tomatoes, peppers, cilantro. Those were years filled with flavor and song. In his quiet, gentle way, Enrique had fixed everything.

Even our neighborhood was alive with happy sounds. The streets were filled with peddlers: “I cash clothes!” cried out the rag seller. Only it all ran together like a chant: “Icashclothes.” This call—“Icashclothes”—translated as, “I will buy your old clothes to resell.” Other men offered knife sharpening. A hunched little man yelled up, “Umbrellas! Got any umbrellas to fix today?” Even better was, “Ice! Ice! Ice!” in summer. And best of all was a trip to the corner soda fountain for my addictive favorite: a strawberry shake. Mami was relaxed and amiable in supplying necessary dimes and Indian-head nickels, sometimes even shining quarters (big money) to purchase treats.