George Chakiris: Riff before Bernardo
George Chakiris as Riff in West Side Story, in 1959 It’s one of those fascinating show-biz factoids. For fourteen months, circa 1959, George Chakiris, a good friend of artsmeme, performed in the London company of West Side Story, at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London’s West End theater district. What is little known is that the ...
Chita & ‘chicas’: WSS’s original ‘America’ dance crew 1
Chita Rivera out front. Behind, L to R: Carmen Gutierrez, Lynn Ross, Liane Plane (unseen behind Chita), Frances Taylor “Chita was so incredible as Anita,” our friend George Chakiris told the audience when I interviewed him in 2015. He played “Riff” in the London production of West Side Story circa 1958/59. Doing that meant keeping ...
Dance Detective: Who chor’ed ‘An Occasional Man’ in ‘The Girl Rush’ (1955)?
courtesy of doc macro From Bob Boross:From the film “The Girl Rush” starring Rosalind Russell, Fernando Lamas, Gloria DeHaven, and Eddie Albert. Matt Mattox is a leading dancer in the film’s four dances. The choreographer is Robert Alton, although Matt told me that he choreographed the film. After examining the dances, it looks as if ...
‘Cher’-ing West Side Story 2
Mar
4
2019
I like her as George Chakiris. Others prefer her as Rita Moreno. (Hey, different strokes for different folks.) She also plays Russ Tamblyn and Natalie Wood. In this gender-bending, cross-dressing, stage-hogging, scene-stealing, performance-arting, one-woman show-ing, television tour-de-force, Cher does it all. Never a shrinking violet, she bursts forth as Tony/Maria/Bernardo/Anita in a West Side Story ...
‘Sans toi,’ Michel Legrand
Jan
26
2019
With choking sadness after a brutal week of perhaps too much Americana we learn of the death of singer/composer Michael Legrand (1932 – 2019) whose sweet-yet-dolorous songs we have found so enchanting. We floated on his ethereal music in the operatic movie-musicals Les parapluies de Cherbourg and Les demoiselles de Rochefort. And then his great, ...
Leaping Jerry Robbins 1
Oct
13
2018
His birthday is over so it is back to business. To admire the work of Jerome Robbins (he is currently being deified, similar to Balanchine) is to stumble upon his borrowings, and lack of crediting of others. This is so sensitive — and it’s a difficult-to-discern thin line of how the artistic process happens. Again ...
Happy birthday, Jerry! Love, WSS kids
When was the last time a film clip got a standing ovation? Well, it happened last night. The audience at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills erupted in appreciation after watching Rita Moreno and George Chakiris, on screen, kicking it to Leonard Bernstein’s thumping music and Stephen Sondheim’s wicked lyrics (all still ring ...
Danielle Darrieux fondly recalled 6
Two young American actor/dancers, George Chakiris and Grover Dale, had a life changing experience when cast in director Jacques Demy’s quirky French take on the movie musical, “Les Demoiselles de Rochefort” (1967, The Young Girls of Rochefort). Amidst a stellar ensemble cast (Michel Piccoli, Jacques Perrin, Gene Kelly) was a great treasure of French cinema, ...
Jack Jones: a lot of livin’ (and singin’) to do
Aug
31
2017
Frank Sinatra called Jack Jones, “one of the major singers of our time.” Mel Torme said he is “the greatest ‘pure’ singer in the world.” George Chakiris who himself recorded four memorable albums at Capitol Records recently said, “He has a wonderful voice and he never stopped working on it. The last time I saw ...
Georgeous & Rita-licious
As Oscar Sunday approaches, we turn to the year when two beautiful young singer/dancers both won Academy Awards for West Side Story. George Chakiris and Rita Moreno, respective winners for Best Actor and Actress in a Supporting Role, appeared stunningly beautiful at the ceremony April 9, 1962 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. This is ...