Chita Rivera’s daughter talks about her mom

Actress-choreographer Lisa Mordente’s birth in 1958 caused a delay in the opening of the West End production of West Side Story which had been a smash in Broadway. You see, her mother, Chita Rivera, was considered so essential to the production that producers did not dare try and replace her.

I spoke with Lisa Sunday afternoon at Skirball Center where her mom received the Julie Harris Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual LA Tony Awards Party. Lisa strongly resembles and has had stage successes of her own including a Tony nomination for best actress in a musical for 1982 for Marlow.

She learned from the best.

“I used to stand in the wings and watch Chicago with mama and Gwen (Verdon) and Jerry Orbach every night. I’d never seen anything like it and have yet to see anything like it since. I knew all the steps. She took me on tour and I’d sit in the orchestra pit and watch and it was so amazing. I had the greatest childhood, it was so much fun.”

Lisa and I had a big laugh when I said: “Every gay man in the world would have loved to have had your childhood!”

“It’s been just like a dream and such a road,” she said. “It’s an amazing career. She’s a great mom too!”

Lisa is thrilled to see the recognition that has come to her mother in recent years including the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors a few years back.

“It’s very interesting when it comes to awards because there are so many of them,” she said. “Mama gets honored now so much but every  time we go to them,. you see your life flashing before your face and it becomes like the most important that you’ve ever been at. Tonight is like the Kennedy Center Honors all over again.”

I also chatted with several of the celebrity guests at the LA party and asked them to share their thoughts on Chita Rivera. Here are some of the highlights:

Jason Alexander: “I’ve known her since 1984 when we did The Rink together and it was one of the highlights of my life. I said to her then and it’s still true: ‘If I’m lucky, I will be able to live my life in this business the way she lives hers.’ She really was a role model for me in every sense, in how to have fun, how to be a professional, how to survive the vagaries, the ups and downs of life in the industry. I adore her like very few that I’ve ever met. She’s one of a kind.”

Valarie Petiford: “What do you say about your idol who happens to be your best friend? I’ve had 10 years of some of the best times of my life with that woman onstage and off and I cannot tell you how blessed I am. People have no idea how brilliant she is off stage. She’s funny, she’s lovely, she’s warm, she’s everything a wonderful human being can be and more.”

Marc Cherry, creator of Desperate Housewives: “Even in her 70s, she’s still a force to be reckoned with and really one of the most legendary Broadway performers there is. There’s s small group of them: Mary Martin and Ethel Merman, Gwen Verdon and Chita. They are kind of like the top four and it’s just an honor to be in the same room with her.”

David Rambo, writer-producer of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: “I’ll never forget the first time I saw her on Broadway in Chicago. It was shattering. I saw her (Saturday) night at Disney Hall and she starts off her concert by singing I Won’t Dance and says, ‘It’s not that I can’t, I just don’t want to.’ Then she dances, throws her legs up in the air. She does everything. She is amazing.”

Mitzi Gaynor: “I just love her. She’s a dear, dear, precious friend of mine. She’s an amazing woman. My (late) husband Jack and I saw her in New York the last night she was working in West Side Story because she had her baby Lisa Mordente.”

Jo Anne Worley: “As glorious as she looks, that’s how talented she is. I saw her (Saturday) night and she shared herself with the audience and she sang like a bird.”