Rita Moreno My WEST SIDE STORY

As West Side Story gets a reboot, Tinseltown legend Rita Moreno reflects on both her early years in Hollywood and the movie that would end up changing her life.

- TIFFANY DUNK

On her first day in Hollywood, 16-year-old Rita Moreno entered the MGM lot with equal parts trepidation and excitement. A talent scout had spotted the Puerto Rican-born, Bronx-raised teenager at a Spanish dance recital. Rita was signed on the spot days later by studio boss Louis B. Mayer himself, so blown away was he by her resemblance to another teenage star. “My God,” he’d declared as she arrived for their meeting (accompanied by her mother Rosa) at his penthouse suite in New York’s Waldorf Astoria. “She’s a Spanish Elizabeth Taylor!”

“I’ll never forget that first day in the studios, it was so exciting,” says Rita, now 90 and speaking to The Weekly from her home in Berkeley, California. “I practically moved in there. I visited the sets, visited the commissary where they served food to the big stars. They had a steam table with real food, things like apple pie and Boston baked beans and roast beef with gravy. Stuff I never had at home – we had rice and beans. It was lunchtime when I was taken there and in walks Lana Turner and Elizabeth Taylor. I thought I would wet my knickers. Can you imagine?”

With that, Rita emits a hoot, clearly still tickled that “this 16-year-old girl from the ghetto” could have ever found herself in such a situation.