Rita Moreno talks about her documentary Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided To Go For It

Rita Moreno talks being latina in hollywood and her struggles.

Video transcript

RITA MORENO: It's a long title, "Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It," which is something I found on a T-shirt.

- Some people might view Rita Moreno as the embodiment of the American dream.

- At the age of 16 years old, she was the sole breadwinner for her family.

- A little Puerto Rican girl whom nobody thought much of at MGM with a contract.

KEVIN POLOWY: It is such a delight and a privilege to speak with you today. I'm very excited for this. You are incredibly awesome. I love the doc. I thought it was so illuminating and enlightening. I really enjoyed it. How did you feel about doing this doc?

RITA MORENO: I was doing "One Day at a Time," and it was being produced, as you may know, by Norman Lear with his producer partner, Brent Miller. It was Brent Miller who came to me one day and said, have you ever thought of doing a documentary? Has anyone ever asked you? And I said, no one's ever asked me. And he said, come on, really? And he said, would you consider? I said, well, I need to trust you with my life, so we'll talk about this. And when I got to that point, I decided to do it. And I decided, I made a promise to myself, that I would be as honest and truthful as I could possibly be. And that's exactly what happened.

- At 87, with a hit show and a movie in the works. It's a remake of "West Side Story" with Latino actors in the lead role.

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KEVIN POLOWY: I mean, in terms of your early struggles as a Latina actress in old Hollywood, whether it was the roles as island girls or dusty maidens, as you call them, or being harassed or assaulted by powerful men who generally thought of you as a sex object, to what do you attribute, looking back now, at your ability to not only endure that but to move forward?

RITA MORENO: It's a good question, but the truth is that it never occurred to me not to. You know, just withstand it. I figured that that's-- and actually, I was right-- that was how Hollywood was run and that's how it functioned. And I just went with the flow, as they say. Not happily. And it's the very thing that eventually drove me into psychotherapy, which is probably the best favor I ever did for myself.

You know, if you're Latina, things are never great, but at least then especially, and you just expect that. And the funny thing is, here's what's crazy, you hate it when they call you a sex object, but here's the truth-- and this is something I didn't mention only because I didn't think of it-- I would dress up in a very, very provocative way. I always wore tight, tight little dresses with my cute little bum, too much makeup usually, and the earrings and stuff.

And I somehow never acknowledged that that wasn't helping. On the other hand, as the #MeToo movement would say right now, well [BLEEP] them, I mean, if they can't take a joke. You can dress any damn way you please. You can wear as many loop earrings and as low-cut a neck as you want. And that's also absolutely true.

KEVIN POLOWY: The film really explores your relationship with Marlon Brando, which is--

RITA MORENO: It sure does.

KEVIN POLOWY: --extremely complicated. I mean, he still seems like such an enigma no matter how much we learn about him. How would you characterize him as a man, as a human, with time to reflect on that?

RITA MORENO: He's probably one of the smartest people I've ever met. He was absolutely one of the funniest people I've ever met. That aside, I was really looking for someone to take care of me. That's been my modus vivendi always. And that's not a way to start a relationship or be in the middle of a-- that's what I did with my husband, too. It wasn't conscious, but the contract is, I'll take care of you if you take care of me in this particular way. And the moment you suddenly want to sort of grow up or start growing up, that's when the marriage or the relationship starts to suffer.

KEVIN POLOWY: Let me ask you this, the E, the G, the O, the T, do any of those mean the most to you?

RITA MORENO: It has to be the Oscar. It has to be the Oscar for all the obvious reasons. It's the iconic support that you receive from your own industry. And that a Puerto Rican girl got this was really, really meaningful. I thought, unhappily, that everything would be fine after that, after winning that and the Golden Globe, which by the way, was an important award at the time. I couldn't get a job afterward. I couldn't-- well, no, no. Not true entirely. I was offered gang things on a lesser scale. Broke my heart. It really broke my heart. I thought, well, obviously it has nothing to do with talent.

KEVIN POLOWY: The film also depicts all of your triumphs over the course of your illustrious career. What do you consider your greatest triumph in this business?

RITA MORENO: That I'm still alive and working as a working actress. That is what's so wonderful. I'm doing a movie starting next, I think in a couple of weeks. It's a little movie, but I'm doing a movie in LA. And I'm doing a guest spot in "Wicked," which is really going to be fun. We're shooting that tomorrow. Ain't that fun?

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA: In this world of the arts that we wanted to get into, we could look up and see Rita and say, OK, well, she could do it. How close can I get?

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