Picture: Roy Tan
In the golden days of the London Palladium, Broadway and Hollywood, when American legends would double bill with British entertainers, I had the privilege, after seeing Juliet Prowse appear with Anthony Newley, to see live for the first time the great Chita Rivera, opening for Max Bygraves. I even got to meet her backstage.
It was the beginning of my admiration and fondness for the performer which would blossom further when, at the age of 17, I first travelled to America and saw her as Velma at the San Francisco Civic Light Opera, aside Gwen Verdon as Roxie, as part of Chicago’s first national tour. That was an unforgettable experience; the icing on the cake was meeting both of them at the stage door. Sadly, I missed Chita when, 20 years later, she tackled the part of Roxie for a limited run at the Adelphi Theatre in London, but she looked amazing in the bootleg videos.
In 1979, I also had the pleasure of attending Chita’s cabaret act at the Resort International in Atlantic City, again getting to spend some chatting with her; and the same in 1980, when she re-created her part of Rosie in Bye Bye Birdie with Donald O’Connor at The Muny in Saint Louis. I reassured her that I was travelling with my parents after she expressed worry regarding my youthful international travels, and I felt proud when she mentioned me in a later interview as her stage-door Johnny!
Much later I visited Chita at the Shaw Theatre in London in 2008 for her solo show and, in 2015, at the long overdue Broadway opening of her last musical The Visit. I also managed to catch her in the revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood at Studio 54 in 2012, as well as in her Carnegie Hall concert Nowadays in 2016 and her double act Just in Time with fellow Broadway legend Tommy Tune at MPAC in Morristown, New Jersey in 2018, both of which I reviewed for Musical Theatre Review, as I did Still Waiting in the Wings, her next-to-last appearance in a movie before Tick, Tick… Boom!
Chita Rivera and Andy Karl in Nowadays at Carnegie Hall, New York. Picture: Koitz
Among the biggest regrets of my life are missing The Rink, in which Chita starred as Liza Minnelli’s mother, despite the age difference of only 14 years, and for which she won her first Tony in 1984, and Kiss of the Spider Woman, which tried out London’s Shaftesbury Theatre in 1992 before transferring to Broadway, for which Chita won her second Tony (a triumphant comeback after a near-fatal car accident). I got to see that Kander and Ebb masterpiece with Vanessa Williams a year later.
The short-lived The Dancer’s Life on Broadway in 2005, an autobiographical show written by Terrence McNally with original material by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, is also something I sadly didn’t get to see, but it was partially revived as a one-night event that I attended, Chita: A Celebration, for her 80th birthday at New York’s August Wilson Theatre in 2013.
I missed the original grand scale production of The Visit in Chicago, choreographed by another recently departed Fosse alumni, Anne Reinking, because it came right on the heels of 9/11 in 2001, as well as its subsequent production at the Signature Theatre in Washington DC in 2008.
I was happy to attend more than one performance of The Visit when it finally reached Broadway after 13 years, marking not only Chita’s but Kander and Ebb’s last Broadway show in 2015. This and the unforgettable two concerts at the Cadogan Hall in February 2019 were my farewells to a lifetime fan affair with a true Broadway legend, as great of a human being as she was an artist.
Through her career, spanning six decades, Chita Rivera did numerous TV appearances, notably on the Judy Garland, Dick Van Dyke and Carol Burnett shows, but the only movie in which she had a major part was Sweet Charity (1969) in which Fosse made the good choice to cast her as Nickie just after she had played Charity herself on the national tour.
In the movie of Chicago of 2002, Rob Marshall only gave her a small cameo, and she didn’t get to re-create her part of Anita in the film version of West Side Story (1961), which was given to Rita Moreno, nor her part of Rosie in Bye Bye Birdie (1963), played by Janet Leigh in the movie.
Now, we hope that Jennifer Lopez will do justice to the part of Aurora that Chita immortalised on Broadway in Kiss of the Spider Woman. The first trailblazer for Latinos, including Ariana DeBose, who in turn played Anita in the Steven Spielberg remake of West Side Story, Chita will always be remembered for being a force of life and energy, contagious to her audience. This made her passing quite unexpected, despite her age.
For anyone who had the great, grand privilege of having seen her on stage, be it in a musical, concert or cabaret, Chita’s legacy will be alive forever.
Patrick Honoré
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