‘Rita Moreno’ documentary worthy of the EGOT icon
No punches pulled as life of multi-talented actress’ gets vital telling
Rita Moreno is obviously multi-talented — she is, after all, one of the few people to have an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony winner). She is also resilient, given that she has had a 70-odd year career.
But a couple of things that stand out in the excellent new documentary “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It” is that the Berkeley resident is ferocious — and oh so vulnerable.
For example, she speaks openly about how a seven-year affair with Marlon Brando drove her to a suicide attempt. But years later, she agreed to star with Brando in a mostly forgotten film, “The Night of the Following Day.”
A glutton for punishment? Or was it to even a score?
One scene called for Brando to slap her, and during filming Moreno decided to slap him back (not in the script) and suddenly the two were trading punches in a pitched brawl. The director, Hubert Cornfield, just let the camera roll, and it stayed in the film.
“That exorcised a lot of demons,” Moreno says in the documentary, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January. But what caused her to try to end her life after Brando dumped her are the same characteristics that caused her to wilt during an eventually loveless, 45-year marriage to cardiologist Leonard Gordon.
An undiagnosed depression, it seems.
“If you have the feeling that you have no value, that’s a serious, serious illness,” Moreno says in a scene from her house in the Berkeley hills overlooking the bay.
The film traces Moreno’s life from poverty in Puerto Rico to poverty in New York, from Hollywood bit player (“Singin’ in the Rain,” “The King and I”) to Oscar-winner for “West Side Story,” from a series regular on PBS’ children’s series “The Electric Company” to her resurgence in the nowcanceled Latinx sitcom reboot “One Day at a Time” and production of the Steven Spielberg remake — to be released Dec. 10 — of “West Side Story” in which she both acts and executive produces.
“Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It” has a lot of star power: Spielberg, Gloria Estefan, Eva Longoria, Lin-manuel Miranda, Whoopi Goldberg and her “Electric Company” co-star Morgan Freeman.
But none outshine the feisty subject herself.