In honor of choreographer Jerome Robbins’ hundredth birthday, cast members from West Side Story gathered at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills last month to relive the dance-centric movie’s power. Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, Russ Tamblyn, and Eliot Feld joined for a panel discussion, some seeing one another for the first time in decades.
Affection radiated as they recalled everything from blisters to bruised egos, resulting from Robbins’ legendary hyper-supra-critical direction.
Courtesy: Brian To, The Paley Center for Media
Moreno’s wit and elegance dominated the conversation, landing one anecdote after vivid anecdote about her experiences as a Latina actress. She even stood to demonstrate a lift with Chakiris that she had done with Chakiris, when both were in their twenties. Moreno is now 87.
Moreno said that before auditioning for the role of Anita in West Side Story in the late 1950s, she hadn’t danced in 18 years. But when Robbins — celebrated at the time for his work on such Broadway musicals as The King and I and On the Town — hinted strongly that he wanted her for the role in the upcoming Broadway-adapted film, Moreno dashed to her nearest dance school in New York and enrolled in as many classes as she could.
The force-feeding worked. Robbins cast her. But Moreno confessed at the Paley Center that she still had doubts, recalling she had confided to Chakiris at the time, “I don’t think this [movie] is going to be a big hit.”
Wrong she was.
A celebrated classic, West Side Story (1961), spins the Romeo and Juliet narrative into one that encapsulates not only passionate young love and conflicting loyalties, but tensions of class, race and national belonging that come to the fore as much today.
“Historic,” said Rob Marshall, introducing West Side Story at the Paley Center. “There’s no other word for it.”
In addition to changing the scope of teen romance films, the film also broke ground for its choreography and use of cinematographic color, earning its place alongside Gene Kelly and Stanley Donan’s 1952, Singin’ in the Rain.
“West Side Story is why I wanted to become a dancer,” said Marshall whose latest projects include Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns, starring Emily Blunt, to be released this winter. “It’s the pinnacle of what we all try to achieve.”
Marshall remembered with particular fondness being in his high school production and performing “Cool” — a famed Robbins number in which the Jets try to temper their aggression toward it arch enemies, the Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks, and stay cool — and in which Tamblyn and Feld were featured in the film. It’s a number that dares the complacent viewer not to care about dance, and in a sense to reflect on why men can dance and not be worried about being perceived as effeminate. “Cool” is Robbins at his most butch, choreographed at a time when homosexuality in the U.S. was still swept under the rug.
During one performance in high school, Marshall said, he recalls breaking his kneecap just before he was meant to perform “Cool.” He danced anyway, in spite of the injury, because: “‘Cool’ was the number you had to do,” he said, smiling as if with a Mary Poppins wink to the audience.
“Not me,” joked Tamblyn, “I didn’t want to do it.”
Tamblyn said that before West Side Story, he wasn’t really a dancer. He’d co-starred in musicals before, but none that required him to blend in among professional Broadway dancers and ballet company members before. He described himself as a “tumbler” rather than a dancer.
When auditioning for West Side Story, Tamblyn said, he “did a backflip… right on the spot.” Robbins wasn’t sure about him at first though. Tamblyn recalled being told by Robbins that “Riff isn’t a tumbler.”
Looking back on the film now, and reflecting on its continued legacy, it’s more accurate to say: Riff wasn’t a tumbler until Russ Tamblyn made him one.
“You have to flip to play Riff now,” commented Marshall.
Meanwhile, unlike Tamblyn and Moreno, Eliot Feld was a “pure” dancer, a highly ballet-trained dancer, rather than an actor. He played Baby John, the youngest member of the Jets, in the film before he turned 20.
Feld admitted that until this year, he hadn’t seen the film since the first time he watched it in the ‘60s, because seeing himself on screen made him self-conscious.
“I was so appalled,” he said, “it wasn’t me.” After appearing in West Side Story, Feld returned to ballet, as an esteemed member of American Ballet Theatre, and formed his own company before he turned 30 and has choreographed more than 100 stage ballets.
There’s beautiful irony in the fact that Feld spent so much of his career dancing at and around Lincoln Center in New York City after West Side Story — which is now home and host to the New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater, both companies Feld danced with in his youth — because the film’s prologue was shot in the neighborhood surrounding the legendary New York performance hall.
The prologue to West Side Story introduces the Sharks and the Jets with bravado. But even more than that, it paints a quintessential portrait of New York City in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Alive with the breathless energy of dance and theater — of West Side Story — the streets of San Juan Hill embody a gritty yet idealized image of the city.
Moreno says those streets also gave all the dancers shin splints, too, though that didn’t slow production. What set filming behind in fact was Robbins’ perfectionism. He was eventually “let go” from West Side Story due to the extra costs incurred when he ran off schedule, according to Marshall.
Moreno stated that the film’s star, Natalie Wood, was so upset by Robbins’ dismissal that she threatened to quit the film.
Each of the four cast members noted Robbins’ intensity. “He made a lot of people cry,” said Moreno. But he had an exceptional performance quality that translated into his stage direction.
Elegant athleticism is a staple of outstanding dance performances — including both “Cool” and the prologue to West Side Story. But where this strength of Robbins’ shines most brilliantly with Stephen Sondheim’s lyricism is undoubtedly in “America,” where the men and women of the Sharks debate life in New York City versus Puerto Rico.
Within the iconic number is a lift that did not go as well on set as it had in rehearsal, said Moreno and Chakiris, largely due to their costumes. Neither partner had tried them on in advance of being on set.
Chakiris laughed, saying he only had two pairs of black pants for “America” and both were made of non-stretch fabric. He ripped both. Without backup pairs, he was forced to dance in the ripped pants with black tights underneath to hide the tears in his costume.
Moreno says there were other elements of the scene that they didn’t anticipate — such as her silk dress and Chakiris’ silk shirt. The angle of Chakiris’ shoulders hadn’t been an issue when they weren’t both wearing slippery fabric, she said.
“What I also didn’t count on was that my ass was bigger than his shoulder,” she laughed.
On set, each time Chakiris lifted Moreno to sit on his shoulder, she would just slip right off of him. “We must have done 30 takes,” she said, emphasizing that the lift had gone perfectly well in rehearsal.
Moreno and Chakiris became very close friends working together on the film: “He’s my daughter’s godfather,” Moreno gushed.
“It was the beginning of everything for me,” Chakiris said of working on West Side Story.
Courtesy: Brian To, The Paley Center for Media
Later, Moreno noted that the film was indeed a catalyst for her, but not necessarily the kind one might expect — especially given that she won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for her performance.
“I didn’t do a movie for seven years,” said Moreno “it broke my heart.” It wasn’t because she wanted to take time off, or because she couldn’t find roles that interested her: “It was about being Latina,” she said.
Despite earning top awards for her portrayal of Anita, she was offered only stereotypical or marginal roles after West Side Story.
When she told him she didn’t think West Side Story would be a “big hit” all those years ago, Chakiris remembers being unsure of the film’s “commercial success,” but he believed West Side Story would be an “artistic success.”
Indeed, the film was successful enough both commercially and artistically to earn it a place not only among classic musicals, but as one that continues to influence acclaimed musicals 60 years later.
And now, Steven Spielberg has set his sights on remaking the film with Ansel Elgort (of Baby Driver and The Fault in Our Stars fame) as its star.
“I think we can expect to see something exceptional,” said Chakiris of Spielberg’s upcoming project.
Moreno is also excited to see Spielberg’s approach to the story — he is, after all, one of her favorite directors. If anyone can do the West Side Story legacy justice, she said, it’s Spielberg. The remake will be choreographed by New York City Ballet’s Justin Peck.
Spielberg’s West Side Story recently found its Tony in Ansel Elgort of Baby Driver, but is still seeking a Maria, Anita, and Bernardo.