Hurricane Rita

If you were cast as a lesbian, whom would you pick
to play your on-screen lover? What a wonderful question. Who would I really
love to schtupp? I’d have to say Angelina
Jolie. But if I were to pick a Latina, then I would say
Eva Longoria. She’s just hotness.

I sort of hoped you’d say Chita Rivera. How do
you feel about the persistent rumors of your feud
stemming from the fact that, even though she
earned a Tony for playing Anita in West Side
Story, you got to play Anita on film? Oh, it’s gotten very old and boring at
this point. Chita performed at the Rrazz Room
recently, and of course I went to see her, and we laughed
and carried on a lot. And she came to see my show at
Feinstein’s in New York, which was really
delicious because she has the most raucous, dirty laugh
you’ve ever heard. In fact, in my show I tell a
wonderful Chita Rivera–Rita Moreno story, which
I’m not going to give away now because
it’s too good.

Growing up in New York, what was your earliest
exposure to gay people? One of my best friends in grammar school was a
gay boy. Well, I knew he was gay, but he did not. His
name was Eddie Lopez, and we used to have the time of
our lives. We drove everybody in our families crazy because
we couldn’t stop jumping around, singing songs, and
just laughing. He was such a campy Cuban kid with skin
the color of milk, curly blond hair, light blue eyes,
and a pretty little face. For me, it was never anything
complicated. It was the most natural thing. He was just a
terrific person.

When did you first become aware of your gay fan base? My huge gay following started with The
Ritz on Broadway [in 1975]. No question
that’s when they began to know me. On my
closing night in the show, after I’d played Googie
Gomez for about a year and a half, an enormous amount
of gay people came to pay homage. At the curtain call,
about 50 to 60 young men and women literally came up on
the stage, all holding bouquets, and laid them at my feet!
It was astonishing. I didn’t know what to do
with that many flowers, so I put them in the tanks and
in the bowls of the toilets in my apartment because I
couldn’t bear the thought of such beautiful tributes
dying. We couldn’t use our own bathrooms for
about a week! We had to use the neighbor’s
bathroom.

Did you catch the 2007 Broadway revival of The
Ritz with Rosie Perez in your role? No. Rosie invited me, but I was working on the
series Cane. It’s very much a period piece
now. But have you seen the movie version? Because
remember, I am the original Googie. I actually coughed
up the character one day when we were in rehearsals of
West Side Story. Gypsies do two things on
their two-minute breaks: They light a cigarette and they do
crazy bits. One day I said, “OK, here’s this
Puerto Rican character who can’t sing or dance
auditioning for the bus-and-truck of Gypsy.”
We all laughed. Many years later, Terrence McNally saw
me do this crazy character at someone’s party, and
he flipped. I did [in a thick Puerto Rican accent] “I
had a dream, a dream about ju, baby,” and
Terrence fell off his chair. He thought it was the
funniest thing he’d ever seen. A year later he wrote
a play called The Tubs, which later became
called The Ritz, and he wrote a wonderful part
in it based on the character that I had invented. A lot
of people don’t know that. In fact, when I told Rosie
she was surprised.

I’ll bet Mr. McNally isn’t wild about you
sharing that story. [Laughs] I don’t think I’ve
heard him say anything about it, but that’s how
it happened. It was one of the great joys of my life, and,
of course, I got the Tony Award for it.