Year 14, Day 208 - 7/27/22 - Movie #4,212
BEFORE: Well, it happened, I watched so many documentaries that there's a new contender for the most appearances in this Movie Year, and it's a former U.S. President. I won't say the name, but it's not THAT one - and this is not unexpected, the people who show up the most ofen in documentaries seem to be Presidents and talk-show hosts. Everyone from Dick Cavett to Dave Letterman to Jimmy Kimmel has been moving up in the ranks - Johnny Carson's been appearing a lot, that much I know. OK, so Nicolas Cage is still tied for the lead, with one of the Presidents, and then Bruce Willis is still in second place with 9 appearances, but tied for third, with 8 appearances each, are John Lennon, Susan Sarandon and Frank Sinatra. I don't think Lennon and Sinatra are expected to show up any more, but you never know. It's a close race, with 13 docs left after tonight, and then another 75 films before I tally everything up.
Marlon Brando carries over from "Mr. Saturday Night" via archive footage. I've had this on my Netflix list for quite a while, but then when I learned that the PBS series "American Masters" licenses quite a few docs about entertainers, I found it there, too.
THE PLOT: A look at the life and work of Rita Moreno from her humble beginnings in Puerto Rico to her success on Broadway and in Hollywood.
AFTER: I've learned so much about the private lives of celebrities over the last couple of weeks, perhaps even a bit too much, like now I know that Jacques Cousteau had a second secret family (how very French!) and Bob Ross was probably having an affair with one of his business partners, none of the Rat Packers were faithful to their wives, and Robert Evans was married and divorced seven times. The long-time married Mel Brooks, Betty White and Elaine Stritch, who all outlived their spouses, kind of look like saints by comparison, but who really knows? And now we come to Rita Moreno, who was in a relationship with Marlon Brando for 7 or 8 years. It was on-again, off-again, and something of an abusive relationship at that, so I'm not really sure what to do with all of that information.
Everything that's revealed here about Moreno's relationships comes from a post-metoo angle, everything is very sort of PC, even if it wasn't at the time, because things are different now than they were then. When she started in the industry, as what they call a "contract player", the studio told the actresses what to do, where to eat, who to date, and they were often seen out on the town with single actors who were straight and unattached or even gay, just to bolster their images as available, attractive, handsome men. But still, the studios kind of pimped them out, if you think about it. Then the big-shot studio executives hit on the very same actresses at parties, in a milder version of the casting couch process, which was probably in play, too. Moreno even talks on camera about being raped by her agent, and then continuing to let that man BE her agent, which just wouldn't fly today in our post-Harvey Weinstein world.
She also had to endure years of playing jungle girls, Asian girls, Native American girls, basically the same silly love-struck roles that were some male writers' or producers' fantasies, wearing not exactly black-face, but more like brown-face, or whatever color the skin of that exotic woman in a short skirt needed to be. And nobody cared about whether the accents were correct, as long as she had one. That's old Hollywood for you, once you get typecast into one type of role, if the film's a hit you get to play that same character, again and again, as long as the skirt is short and that puts male asses in the seats.
Eventually she got a minor part in "Singin' in the Rain" as a silent film star, Zelda Zanders. But it was two steps forward and one step back, because then she was in "The King and I" as an Asian love-struck slave. The struggle continued until "West Side Story" in 1961, when she finally played a strong Latina character, Anita, and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, but then was offered just a bunch of the same characters again and again. So, she stopped making movies and went to work on Broadway, where she won a Tony for "The Ritz".
We know where this is going, because that's half of an EGOT, and this is the THIRD documentary in my chain this year focused on people who have won all four major entertainment awards, the others were Mel Brooks and Mike Nichols. Her Grammy came in 1972 for an album from "The Electric Company" and the Emmys came in 1977 and 1978 for appearing on "The Muppet Show" and "The Rockford Files". She didn't stop there, she got a Golden Globe, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, and got the SAG Life Achievement Award in 2013. National Medal of Arts, Presidential Medal of Freedom, a Peabody Award, you get the idea.
After all that, what else was there to do, besides guest appearances on "The Love Boat", "The Golden Girls" and "The Cosby Show"? Plenty, it turns out. Who can forget her as the tough nun, Sister Pete, on HBO's "Oz"? Or the voice of Carmen Sandiego on that PBS geography game-show? How about as Detective Goren's dying mother on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent"? And then came the Latina-based remake of "One Day at a Time", and most recently everything came full circle for her with a role in the remake of "West Side Story" - I'd link there directly but that would take me off the path of finishing all these documentaries, but don't worry, I'm going to get there in about a month, that film is part of my plan for 2022, just 24 steps away from here.
I'm not sure I prefer all the PC-material in my documentaries, though - Moreno is seen following the Brett Kavanagh confirmation hearings, and championing the testimony of that woman who claimed he assaulted her at a party. Umm, great, but Kavanagh still got confirmed, so that was a bit of a failure. Moreno also speaks up for abortion rights, which is important, sure - she had a botched abortion after getting pregnant by Marlon Brando, and while her story is significant, it appears that ship has already sailed now, since Roe v. Wade got overturned. It's too late now, only it isn't, the fight has to start all over again, still, can't the documentary just focus on the movie career? It's important for her to talk about her suicide attempt, too, and I'm glad she got therapy and moved past all of that, but still...it's not why I came to the movie.
Anyway, the best news here is that Rita Moreno is still alive, still working, after eight decades in show business. Unlike many of the other celebrities profiled here, the dead are clearly outnumbering the living this time around. And now one of my favorite actors, David Warner, has passed away - Paul Sorvino, too. We've already lost so many celebrities in 2022 that I'll be hard-pressed to pick one for my dedication in January - but I'm leaning toward Meat Loaf.
Also starring Rita Moreno (last seen in "Marlowe"), George Chakiris, Hector Elizondo (last seen in "Overboard" (1987)), Gloria Estefan (last heard in "Vivo"), John Ferguson, Tom Fontana, Morgan Freeman (last seen in "Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard"), Mitzi Gaynor, Whoopi Goldberg (last seen in "Sammy Davis Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me"), Norman Lear (ditto), Eva Longoria (last seen in "The Sentinel"), Justina Machado (last seen in "Betty White: First Lady of Television"), Terrence McNally, Lin-Manuel Miranda (last seen in "Tick, Tick...Boom!"), Chita Rivera (ditto), Sonia Manzano (last seen in "I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story"), Karen Olivo, Gina Rodriguez (last heard in "Scoob!"), Tony Taccone,
with archive footage of Jack Benny (last seen in "Dean Martin: King of Cool"), Gene Kelly (ditto), Natalie Wood (ditto), Yul Brynner, George W. Bush (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Robert Clohessy (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), Ted Danson (last seen in "The One I Love"), Sammy Davis Jr. (last seen in "Jerry Lewis: The Man Behind the Clown"), Tom Ewell, America Ferrera (last seen in "End of Watch"), Christine Blasey Ford, Judy Garland (also last seen in "Sammy Davis Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me"), Martin Luther King (ditto), James Garner (last seen in "The Children's Hour"), Rita Hayworth (last seen in "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead"), Rock Hudson (last seen in "Becoming Mike Nichols"), Howard Keel (last seen in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"), Deborah Kerr (last seen in "Frank Sinatra: One More for the Road"), Debbie Reynolds (ditto), Jimmy Kimmel (last seen in "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project"), Elizabeth Taylor (ditto), Mario Lanza, Louis B. Mayer, Christopher Meloni (last seen in "The Diary of a Teenage Girl"), Jack Nicholson (also carrying over from "Mr. Saturday Night"), David Niven, Barack Obama (last seen in "Spielberg"), Donald O'Connor, Kelly Ripa (last seen in "Cheaper By the Dozen"), Joan Rivers (last seen in "Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed"), Ryan Seacrest (last seen in "New Year's Eve"), Sonia Sotomayor (last seen in "All In: The Fight for Democracy"), Steven Spielberg (last seen in "Spielberg")
RATING: 6 out of 10 digs at her late husband (really?)
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