At the ripe young age of 90, actress/dancer/singer/producer Rita Moreno is a cover girl. She has been working since the era of Old Hollywood. But impressively, Rita Moreno is still as glamorous as ever, as she graces the cover of this month’s Town And Country magazine in their “O.G.” issue, which “honors the living style and arts figures whose gritty dedication to their own originality and point of view has made them into our cultural touchstones.”
The 90-year-old, who boasts EGOT (A winner of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards) status, showcased her still lithe dancer’s figure as she declared that even now’ I still don’t have what I want’ in her career. Rita cut a stylish figure in a string of sleek ensembles that emphasized her trim frame as she demonstrated her agility in front of the camera.
She struck a pose reminiscent of Liza Minnelli, sitting sideways on a director’s chair with one leg slung over an armrest and another stretched out behind her. Rita also channeled Marlene Dietrich in an outfit that resembled a men’s suit above the waist only to feature a long split skirt below. Another picture saw her perched on a block with her endless pins splayed out as she modeled a Saulo Villela for Adrienne Landau boa headpiece. She also pranced about in a simple white blouse that she wore trouser-less with black hose, bringing back memories of Broadway legend Elaine Stritch.
The shoot gave Rita the opportunity to recycle one of her own glamour pieces – a high feathered turban headpiece with a jeweled brooch that she wore while playing Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard on the West End back in the 1990s. “People aren’t exactly knocking my door down, you know. This West Side Story connection is wonderful, but that’s just one job,” she said.
In an accompanying interview with Erik Maza, Moreno discusses being thought of as a “legend,” being able “to tell people to shut the f**k up,” and starring in “West Side Story…” twice. Rita, who was born in Puerto Rico, won her Oscar by playing the spunky Anita in the first movie adaptation of West Side Story in 1962. She was the first Latina to ever win an acting Academy Award. In her interview with Town & Country she says, “When I started out, I wanted to be an actress in the movies. I wanted to be a star. That’s all I wanted out of life from the time I was five.” But Rita also dismissed the idea of ‘legacy,’ describing it as “not something I associate with myself, and I never related to it. I don’t relate to it now. I don’t know – that’s a word I always associate with white people. It’s like a $50 word.”
You can find the March issue of Town & Country in newstands and online now.
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