Chita Rivera, the dazzling Broadway star who originated roles in the musicals “Chicago,” “West Side Story” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” died on Tuesday.
She was 91.
The actress died peacefully in New York following a brief illness, her daughter, Lisa Mordente, said in a statement.
A brilliant dancer who mastered the moves of some of the twentieth century’s greatest choreographers, including Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse, Rivera is best remembered for her performances as brassy “he had it comin’!” murderess Velma Kelly in 1975’s “Chicago” and “I want to be in America!” Anita in 1957’s “West Side Story.”
On opening night of “West Side,” Post critic Richard Watts Jr. championed her casting, writing “Chita Rivera is of vast help as the lover of the heroine’s brother.”
But while Rivera was praised for playing Maria’s fiercely protective friend in Leonard Bernstein’s “Romeo and Juliet” riff onstage, the role was taken over by Rita Moreno in the Oscar-winning film.
“[I] politely say, ‘I was the original Anita,” Rivera wrote in her 2023 memoir “Chita.”
She piled on in her 2005 one-woman show called “Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life,” which looked back on her long career in showbiz.
“My costumes. My steps. My orchestrations. Rita Moreno won the Academy Award for giving my performance,” the actress said.
The daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, Rivera was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero Anderson in Washington, DC, in 1933.
“My heritage helped make me what I am,” she told The Post in 2005. “I was always proud of my roots – the big family, all the food, the celebrating.”
She headed to New York City as a teenager and studied ballet, and by 1951 she was cast in the touring company of “Call Me Madam,” which starred Elaine Stritch.
“I was scared of Elaine,” Rivera said in her show. “I still am. Aren’t you?”
But she soon became a theatrical force in her own right. Even though her career exploded after “West Side,” Rivera’s first Tony Award nomination arrived when she originated the role of Rose in the 1960 musical “Bye Bye Birdie,” opposite Dick Van Dyke, Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly.
In 1957, she married Tony Mordente — who played A-Rab, a Jet, in “West Side Story” — but the marriage failed and the couple divorced in 1966.
“I had to marry a child to get a child,” she said of daughter Lisa in “The Dancer’s Life.”
While she was still with Mordente, Rivera had an affair with Sammy Davis Jr. during “Mr. Wonderful” (1966), and later dated restaurateur Joe Allen in the 1970s when his eponymous eatery was Broadway’s favorite hangout.
“I went out with Joe for a little bit during ‘Chicago’,” she told The Post in 2020. “And nobody knew that he was a warm, funny guy that really cared.”
Rivera finally won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical in 1984, for John Kander and Fred Ebb’s “The Rink” and again in 1993 for that duo’s “Kiss of The Spider Woman.” Her final appearance on Broadway was in 2015’s “The Visit” — another Kander and Ebb musical.
She also received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2018.
Adding to her accolades, Rivera was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2002, and Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
“I understand what living means, but this legend business?” the actress told The Post in 2005. “I know it’s a compliment, and I accept it.”
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