Rita Moreno’s Memoir Rita Moreno: A Memoir (with Becca Ramos and Kristina Lopez)

Summary

Glamorous Trash: A Celebrity Memoir Podcast

Episode: Rita Moreno’s Memoir "Rita Moreno: A Memoir"
Host: Chelsea Devantez
Guests: Becca Ramos, Kristina Lopez
Date: January 27, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode book clubs the riveting, layered memoir of EGOT-winning Latina legend Rita Moreno. Host Chelsea Devantez is joined by producer Kristina Lopez and podcast creator Becca Ramos for a wide-ranging, heartfelt, and critical discussion on Moreno’s 2013 autobiography. Together, they unpack old Hollywood, colorism, immigrant narratives, complicated family legacies, trauma, and the wild, sometimes disheartening inner workings of Hollywood stardom. The conversation is anchored in personal resonance—both Becca and Kristina draw on their Puerto Rican roots, enriching the analysis of Moreno’s impact as a cultural icon.

Trigger Warning: The episode contains frank discussions about sexual assault, abortion, suicide, and family trauma.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Rita's Early Life and Cultural Displacement

• Immigration Trauma & Family Separation

  • Rita’s memoir begins with her harrowing journey, age 5, from Puerto Rico to New York with her mother, leaving behind her little brother and extended family.

    “She has such doubt ... she doesn’t know if her mom had to really leave her dad.” —Chelsea (13:29)

  • Both guests relate this to intergenerational Puerto Rican trauma and migration, shedding light on how Moreno’s experience parallels many immigrant narratives.

    “It’s a reflection of your mother for sure that you have no choice... But I thought ... I was very shocked at the coldness her mother experienced...” —Becca (11:39)

• Cultural Dislocation

  • Rita’s first words in English (“Hey boy. Shut up.”) are learned in a hospital ward—a scene described as both vivid and tragic.

    “Crying and feverish, I learned my first words in English from that boy. Shut up. Hey, boy. I shout back, hey, boy. Shut up. I have always been a quick study, fast learner, anything to survive.” —Chelsea reading Rita (15:06)

• Colorism and Respectability

  • Early on, Rita’s career is shaped by pressure to appear “Spanish from Spain”—a code for whiter, elite, and more acceptable than “Puerto Rican” or “Cuban.”

    “Spanish from Spain meant not Puerto Rican or Cuban or Mexican...and it’s weird that it’s still raging on currently.” —Chelsea (18:17)

2. Navigating Old Hollywood & Identity

• Hollywood Stereotyping and Renaming

  • Rita is pressured into a name change by studio execs (from Rosita to “Rita Moreno”), drastically altering her sense of identity.

    “Your name is different. Like, okay, you fucked that person. For the rest of their life, they will always see themselves as a before and after...” —Chelsea (25:58)

  • The hosts reflect on the emotional toll of such reinventions and the loss of self.

• Tokenism and Typecasting

  • Rita is repeatedly cast as “ethnic” in a range of roles, reflecting both her “otherness” and the typecasting/racism of Hollywood.

    “I always looked at her as a white Puerto Rican ... but knowing Rita Moreno my whole life ... it is interesting to see ... lighter skinned Latinos experience the same colorism...” —Becca (18:32)

• Industry Survival vs. Complicity

  • Moreno candidly reflects on playing roles perpetuating negative stereotypes (Native American, Asian, etc.). The hosts applaud her honesty given the memoir’s 2013 release—years before mainstream reckoning with such issues.

    “She’s very much reflecting. Like she says, looking back, I am ashamed ... but I had to do it. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to have any roles.” —Kristina (21:21)

3. Traumas & Relationships

• Family Trauma & Estrangement

  • Moreno’s strained relationship with both parents—her abandonment by her father and her complex, sometimes cold mother—frames much of her early psychological make-up.

    “I was angry with the stranger who had seen me in films, now suddenly showed up.” —Chelsea reading Rita (34:14)

• Old Hollywood: Abuse and Exploitation

  • Reminiscences about sexual exploitation and lecherous studio figures (e.g., Harry Karl) are chilling, with both guests reflecting on parallel, personal experiences with colorism and objectification.

    “As a brown girl who grew up in the south, this has happened to me ... as an adult now being, like, a little grateful because I was never their type.” —Becca (45:24)

4. The Marlon Brando Saga (49:10)

• Obsessive Love and Lifelong Impact

  • A significant portion of the memoir (and episode) is devoted to Moreno’s tempestuous, traumatic, always-toxic entanglement with Marlon Brando. The hosts decry how Brando is often lionized, but, through Moreno’s eyes, is exposed as a deeply destructive force.

    “He’s the reason she got a therapist. He’s the reason that she became politically active ... but he still harmed you so objectively.” —Becca (53:22)

  • They discuss cycles of abuse, obsession, and how Moreno continued to pedestal Brando despite betrayal, coercion into abortion, and near-deadly heartbreak.

    “It’s supposed to be a fleeting experience in your twenties where you learn that the guy who’s a dick ... doesn’t really love you. And instead, I think she learned the opposite lesson.” —Chelsea (56:49)

• Fascination and Frustration

  • Rita’s tendency to describe Brando as “the one” is seen as both a reflection of trauma-bonding and a cautionary tale.

    “She really tries to prove to us that she is the one who was his favorite.” —Chelsea (52:02)

• Other Flings and Memoir Digressions

  • The “Men’s-moir” section receives criticism for devoting disproportionate space to men’s backstories (Elvis, Hughes) rather than Moreno’s own story.

    “She started giving, like, their backstory, their accolades, like, where they grew up.” —Chelsea (47:23)

5. Colorism & Internalized Prejudice (79:33)

• Personal Colorism Confessions

  • Moreno openly worries in the memoir about her own baby’s potential skin color, exposing deep-rooted, uncomfortable truths about internalized colorism:

    “I also fretted about the baby’s skin color...I couldn’t help thinking, my grandfather had dark skin. What if the baby is dark?...Such is the insidious nature of prejudice, even though I’d absorbed some fear of my own heredity as I wondered what African genes might lurk under my own skin.” —Chelsea reading Rita (79:21)

  • Both Becca and Kristina validate the painful familiarity of this anxiety within Puerto Rican and Caribbean families.

    “This is something that I think is a part of the colorism within the specifically Caribbean diaspora ... I did actually relate with this.” —Becca (81:02)

• "Spanish from Spain" & Ongoing Color Politics

  • The group highlights how these distinctions and cultural prejudices persist in Latinx communities today, contextualizing Moreno’s complicated feelings.

6. Later Life: Marriage, Motherhood, and Career

• Marriage to Lenny—A “Settlement”

  • Moreno describes her relationship with her husband Lenny as stable but lacking in passion. The guests note retroactively how this is complicated by later admissions of his extreme jealousy and control:

    “From the start of our marriage, Lenny had stalked me ... It was eerie.” —Chelsea reading Rita (85:18)

  • Lenny becomes her agent ("husbander"), which, the hosts joke, may have contributed to stifling her career.

• West Side Story and Legacy

  • Moreno’s iconic role as Anita in "West Side Story," and its lasting cultural impact, are highlighted, including recent parallels (Ariana DeBose’s Oscar win for the same role).

    “Your Anita paved the way for tons of Anitas like me. And I love you so much.” —Ariana DeBose, via Christina (42:16)

  • Ongoing colorism in showbiz is discussed vis-à-vis the In the Heights casting controversy, for which Moreno herself apologized after initial dismissiveness.

• Career Resurgence & EGOT Status

  • Despite winning an Oscar, new roles did not immediately follow. Still, Moreno secured a legendary career, including “Oz,” “The Muppet Show,” and a late-career return in “One Day at a Time.”

7. Intergenerational Healing and Representation

• Closing Reflections

  • Moreno’s resilience and later family happiness—especially being a grandmother to boys after years of loss—offers a note of completion.

    “There is something beautiful...that she lost these brothers, and then in the end, she gets two grandsons ... you were kind of given the gift of having grandsons and shepherding these young men...” —Kristina (93:58)

• Importance to Puerto Rican Community

  • The guests reflect on seeing themselves and their families in Moreno’s story, underlining the rarity and importance of authentic Latina narratives.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Colorism in Hollywood:
  “Spanish from Spain was a serious distinction. It meant not Puerto Rican or Cuban or Mexican. Spanish from Spain meant the ultimate Hispanic cast.” —Chelsea reading Rita (17:00)

• On Identity Loss:
  “In that moment, my old life would officially end ... Why did I take the last name of a man I despise?” —Chelsea (25:33)

• On Surviving Hollywood:
  “You have to work twice as hard to get half as far.” —Becca (31:29)

• On Marlon Brando:
  “He is someone who, to the depths of her last dying breath, she will be thinking about Marlon Brando. But it’s sad to know the reality is: she is just one of many.” —Becca (51:32)

• On Internalized Colorism:
  “Such is the insidious nature of prejudice, even though I’d absorbed some fear of my own heredity...” —Chelsea reading Rita (79:21)

• On Representation:
  “That means she lives on my aunt’s block on 52nd Street … but it felt like she was in proximity to me [growing up].” —Kristina (92:29)

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Key Timestamps

• 03:41 – Introductions: Chelsea, Kristina, Becca
• 07:35 – Rita's migration story & leaving her brother behind
• 16:56 – “Spanish from Spain,” colorism, and early dance training
• 18:32 – Colorism within and outside the Latinx community
• 25:33 – Reinvention, name change, and bifurcated identity
• 34:14 – Reunion with estranged father; regret and loss
• 41:13 – King and I, tokenism and guilt over non-Puerto Rican roles
• 42:10 – Oscar for Anita, West Side Story legacy
• 46:14 – Predatory men and Hollywood exploitation
• 49:10 – Marlon Brando: obsession, toxicity, and aftermath
• 61:35 – Brando’s coercion of abortion, trauma, and suicide attempt
• 67:26 – "West Side Story" impact and on-set racism
• 79:21 – Moreno’s confessions about internalized colorism
• 87:14 – Lenny’s controlling behavior and the 'husbander' dynamic
• 93:51 – Grandparenthood and full-circle family healing
• 95:22 – Book Dill Test: vulnerability, entertainment, and life lessons

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Final Thoughts & Recommendations

• The group praises Moreno’s resilience and candor but notes sections where the memoir devolves into “men’s-moir” and wants more introspective depth on Moreno herself.
• The memoir is acclaimed for breaking silence on colorism, generational trauma, and as a Puerto Rican/Latina touchstone.
• All agree: it’s engaging, sometimes infuriating, deeply moving, and still relevant in discussions of Hollywood and identity.

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Related Resources & Recommendations

• Becca Ramos’ podcast: Welcome to El Barrio (launches Feb 3, iHeart Media)
• Previous episodes: Fran Drescher, Debbie Reynolds, Whoopi Goldberg, Chita Rivera, Patty Duke
• Further reading: Rita Moreno’s memoir, Chita Rivera’s memoir, other Latina celebrity memoirs

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Essential Quote to Close

“I adore Rita Moreno, and I really resonate with the part of her that had to be such a survivor. You can tell she had to compartmentalize so much. And I just think she’s such a light and such a gem.” —Chelsea (100:52)

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Summary by the Glamorous Trash team. For full context, listen to the episode and join the ongoing book club on Patreon.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

We'll remind you of your childhood without.

[B]

Making you feel incredibly old.

[A]

Kraft Mac and Cheese Best thing ever. Welcome to Glamorous Trash. This is a podcast that book clubs, viral articles, celebrity memoirs and trash cashy discourse to elevate your life. I'm your host Chelsea Devontes. I'm a TV writer, comedian, filmmaker, author and sometimes I'm in stuff too. And today we are covering the memoir of legendary actor Rita Moreno called Rita Moreno A memoir published in March 2013. Now, you might know Rita from her role as Anita in the first film version of west side story in 1961. Or maybe you grew up watching her on the Muppet show or, or the Electric Company. She has had a 75 year career that also includes amazing roles in Singing in the Rain, the King and I, the Ritz. We're going to get into a lot of it. More recently she has had recurring roles on Oz and One Day at a Time. Rita was the third person to ever achieve EGOT status that is winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award. She's an absolute legend and you're going to hear a lot of Hollywood history in this episode. This memoir also took me on a real journey. It was a real up and down roller coaster and there's just like a lot about Marlon Brando. So get ready and this is your trigger warning because this is a difficult, layered memoir. There's going to be discussions of sexual assault, abortion, suicide and a lot of trauma. So always take care while listening and don't just take care of yourself. Let's try and take care of others. And there is so much going on right now. There's so much to be upset about. And every time I'm upset, I, I call 202-224-3121, which is Congress's switchboard where you call the number and they're like, what representative do you want to talk to? And if you're like, I don't know, they help connect you to one. You just say your zip code, they connect you to your Rep. And then you tell them how you're feeling. And so I've been calling everybody and when they pick up or send me to the message machine, I say vote no on the upcoming bill this week that will continue to fund ice. Sometimes I say it really theatrically, just really get all my upset out into the call so that they act. We only have a few days for the Senate to vote no on this bill and the House passed it. Seven Democrats voted yes. Traitors. Let's primary them out. Okay, so we're going to link this at the top of the show notes. So when you get to the first ad break or you're just feeling like taking a break from the episode, just click that number in the show notes.

[B]

Give them a call.

[A]

It takes like 30 seconds. Let's just try and do as much as we can. And this is one easy thing you can do. So phone number is in the show notes. Now let's dive in. I like the island Manhattan. I know you do.

[C]

Smoke on your pipe and put legend.

[A]

I have two guests here with me today, one of whom you know you love. She's the mayor of Patreon. You hear on all our Cookie Jar episodes, it is our producer, Christina Lopez.

[C]

Hi Chelsea.

[A]

Let's go.

[C]

I'm so excited to talk about this. Oh Christine, I love your intros.

[A]

Our other guest today is Becca Ramos. Becca is a Brooklyn based, Houston raised, Puerto Rican award winning podcast producer, writer and creative. She works on shows at iHeartMedia including this Is Important, Las Culturistas and Mess. Becca is also getting ready to launch her podcast welcome to El Barrio. It follows Becca's journey into self discovery of culture and healing. So this is just like the most amazing episode to have you on because then you're gonna go into your podcast which everyone could go listen to. And in each episode Becca tackles a new topic about the Puerto Rican experience. And the first episode will be out on February 3rd. Becca, this could not be a more perfect to have you on as a guest. Yes.

[B]

I was so excited when the request came in for me to join your show because a I am a listener and obviously I work with Ana and you are friends with Ana. Ana did your Constance Wu episode. But yeah, when the ask came in I was like, Rita Moreno, this is absolutely a perfect book for me to come on to talk to for the show. So I'm so excited to be here.

[A]

I'm so happy you're here.

[C]

Now.

[A]

Had you read Rita's memoir before?

[B]

No, I had not read the memoir at all. I binged it before it's gone. And it was honestly so interesting. I feel weary with certain celebrity memoirs that they can be kind of long winded. They can be kind of like, all right, let's get to it. But I felt very, like, engaged the entire time I was reading this book. She has had such a not only obviously prolific career in not only in the Latino community, but at large of Hollywood, because she is now 94, you know, and she's still kicking. She's still doing stuff. Like, she is some of our oldest relics of. Of old Hollywood. And I found that part of the book to be some of the most interesting parts of the book.

[A]

I love that insight. Christina, what was your journey of reading the memoir? Because I agree, Becca. When it began, I was like, wow, poetry. It jumps right in.

[B]

And then I think I like.

[A]

I feel like this book flipped me like a pancake. I, like, went back and forth all the time. Christina, what was your experience with the book?

[C]

I felt like I could see every version of a woman in my family throughout this book, whether it was my grandmother, because they were born the same year. Rita and my grandmother, same age, and my mother, me, my niece who's trying to become an actress and getting into acting now, and the aunt that would call me out for gaining weight during Christmas. Like, those aspects too.

[A]

We all have one, don't we?

[C]

Yeah. So it's like the bad parts, the good parts, really, I was laid bare by this. And, yeah, there's a lot of things that we're gonna have to talk about here.

[A]

It's also so fascinating. You both are Puerto Rican, and you both are from New York. Well, I know Christina's from New York City. Becky, you currently live in New York City, so that's also, like, a hu. Part of this book.

[B]

Yes, it is interesting because my grandmother is about 10 years younger than Rita Moreno. My grandmother was born in 1941, I want to say, and she is New Eurekan. Though my grandmother was born and raised in Spanish Harlem, lived between the Bronx and Spanish Harlem her whole life, and then she met a Puerto Rican man in Puerto Rico. Like, she was visiting her father who lived on the island. So I have. Even though I grew up in Texas and I was born in la, I have such a strong connection to the Nuyorican experience. I would say I was raised in a very Nuyorican island, Puerto Rican house, because those were the women in my life.

[A]

Yeah. Wow. That is wild how your grandma's story mirrors rita's. So in 1936, that's where Rita starts the book and her mom has basically absconded with her. It's kind of like in the middle of the night, but then like it sounds like her dad was at the dock waving to them and her mom is taking her on a boat to get to New York City, but they're leaving really quickly and they're leaving her little brother Francisco behind. And her chicken, she was like my chicken, like my city, like everyone I love, my family, my grandpa. And her mom puts her on a boat with her called the Karabobo. Yes. Which, what does that translate to? Stupid face.

[C]

Yes, Stupid face.

[A]

Why would you name a boat Stupid stupid Face? Like she said it was the ss, the SS Carabobo. And they have what sounds like a horrifying experience, a five day journey where she looks back and is like now I'm not even sure if it was legal passage. Was the boat, you know, overflowing and people are just like vomiting and all sorts of other things all five days until they get to New York City. What was your insights and takes from this part of like leaving Puerto Rico because her dad was bad but she doesn't have a lot of details about it and then getting to New York City, which she hates, and then never sees Francisco again. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break right now and we'll be right back. LA goes through so many weather changes so frequently. Sometimes it's raining, sometimes it's sunny and my skin reacts every single time. So I have been taking Rituals Hysera skin supplement which is a clinically proven way to support skin hydration with science backed benefits like reducing wrinkles and improving skin smoothness. Now I love that Hysara is a certified B corp, which means they are committed to doing good in the world and good with their product which always makes me feel better both as a person and with the product I am using. And Hysara led to a 2.9 increase in facial skin smoothness within 90 days as compared to a placebo. Hysera is also rigorously tested and validated by a third party for allergens, microbes and heavy materials and is Clean Label Project certified so you can trust what you are putting in your body. Start Hysera to support your glow without compromising on clean science for a limited time. Save 40% on your first month at ritual.com glamorous that's ritual.com glamorous for 40% off your first month. When I went on the book tour, people were always surprised at how tall I was. Even though on this Podcast. I say that I'm tall, but I'm 5 8. And Quince's wide leg pants are perfect for me. So if you are a tall gal and you're looking for a wide leg pant, that's not gonna look so weird because it's like an inch and a half too short. You get to choose a longer inseam on quints. I love their wide leg pants. I have three pairs at this point. Quince has all the staples covered from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts for easy dressing up. And like everything from Quint's, each piece is made with premium materials and ethical trusted factories, then priced far below what other luxury brands charge. And I got my husband this cool corduroy shirt jacket that he's loving. There's only a few places where I can order something for him and something for me, and Quince is one of them. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Don't wait. Go to Quince.comGlamorous for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N C E.comGlamorous to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comGlamorous okay, welcome back. Let's continue the conversation.

[B]

I have so many thoughts on the Francisco. Like, I feel very complicated about it because I'm like, it's a reflection of your mother for sure that you have no choice as a young little Rosita to have a relationship with your brother or not. But I thought even though there are a lot of, I feel like migrant stories in general, not just Puerto Rico, but like all communities of immigrants that have to make hard decisions about trying to make a better life for your family. I do know people whose like families got left behind, but they reunite eventually or have communication. I was very shocked at the coldness her mother experienced of just leaving her son behind and never turning back to the point that it becomes more evident throughout the book when she has another son with another man. And you still just left your other son behind. I'm still so I think that's like the hardest part for me to comprehend of this whole book. I can't imagine with a mother being able to do that. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

She's five years old when this is happening essentially. And the way that she describes it in the book, it's so visceral and how like big this trauma is for her and how it's still very present to the way that she describes it, like, the feelings are still there. And it was something that I was a little bit unfamiliar with because my grandparents came during the bigger diasporic rave that happened between the 1940s and the 1960s, when America was, like, intentionally trying to depopulate the island Puerto Rico. So she was part of this first wave of immigrants that were coming during the 1930s that didn't have the infrastructure that was set up for my grandparents through community support, they were establishing that. So it was a very cold existence, both physically, because she came in February 1936.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Such a terrible month.

[C]

I think that speaks to the urgency her mother must have had to leave.

[A]

That's what I initially felt. But the way Rita writes about it, she has such doubt. And granted, she was only 5, so she doesn't have the story, but she doesn't know if her mom had to really leave her dad. She feels like her mom maybe lied about coming back for Francisco and was always going to leave him behind. And like you said, there's no contact, there's no letters. By the time she could find Francisco, he has passed. And so it's hard because why her mom had to leave isn't fully in the book. And I think Rita believes that maybe there was some selfishness there, but there's really no way to know because, yeah, she was a kid.

[B]

I feel like it's a little bit of both, because as someone who had a great grandparent who did leave at the same time her mother left Puerto Rico, I do feel like the culture at the time, and even to this day, there's a lot of misogyny in Puerto Rican culture on the island, and it just seeps through, through generations. I do feel like there was some danger in the way maybe potentially her husband was. And she was also 22. I think her mom, when she chose to make decision, it's like she was really young. She was really young. She had these two kids. But I do think, and this is total speculation as a Puerto Rican woman with a Puerto Rican father and like, Puerto Rican men and the trauma that I think men can leave in our community, I maybe think that she, like, looked at Francisco, like, she looked at her husband and was like, no, I don't want to. I'm taking my daughter. And then also, as we will get into the book, it's, like, clear that her mom is potentially a narcissist and, like, has clearly so much generational trauma. I think she looked at Rosita and was like, she's talented. She's doing all these things. She maybe will help me bring opportunity in Nueva York. But also, I have to get out of this living situation. And I don't want to deal with having a son because I can't deal with having a husband. So who knows?

[A]

Who knows? But that is. That is beautifully and heartbreakingly said of what could have been happening. Yeah.

[C]

And I did talk to my mom about this, and she said it wasn't uncommon for people to leave their kids behind for a little while to be raised, you know?

[B]

Yeah, that's the jarring part, because you expected it to be a little while.

[A]

And then it never.

[B]

And that was the part that I could never.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Get over.

[A]

Yeah. And I don't think Rita did either. So.

[B]

No.

[A]

They get to New York and she immediately gets chickenpox. And she learns her first English words in the hospital. This is how the book starts. Hey, boy. I scream, hey boy. I don't know what I'm saying. I speak only Spanish. Just off the boat from San Juan. I'm five years old in a hospital ward, and I know there's another Spanish kid here because I can hear him a few beds away from me. The orderlies are yelling at him, and I parrot what they say. Hey, boy. Crying and feverish. I learned my first words in English from that boy. Shut up. Hey, boy. I shout back, hey, boy. Shut up. I have always been a quick study, fast learner, anything to survive. What a first page. And from there, she. Early on they see that she has talent and they're like, you should get Rita, or Rosita, as she's known in that moment, into dance classes. And she takes dance classes from Rita Hayworth's, not only Rita's teacher, but Rita's uncle. And Rita Hayworth and Rita Moreno have a lot in common in that Rita is later going to get renamed after Rita Hayworth, who was also. Wait, where was Rita Hayworth from?

[C]

She was born and raised in Brooklyn, but she's half Spaniard.

[A]

That's right. Okay, so it kind. They had similarities, too, of like, oh, you are going to be Hispanic, but also in Hollywood. And so she takes dance classes, like, from Rita Hayworth's teacher. And like, that's how she gets her start. Man, this part really got me. So if I am from anywhere, I'm from New Mexico. That's where my family has lived for like 20 plus years. And reading this in her book took me back to something that happens in New Mexico currently. And so I'm Going to read it, she said, they enrolled me to study with an authentic quote, Spanish from Spain dance teacher. Spanish from Spain was a serious distinction. It meant not Puerto Rican or Cuban or Mexican. Spanish from Spain meant the ultimate Hispanic cast. Spanish from Spain meant he would speak the cultivated dialect very different from Puerto Rican Spanish. And then later she wrote, he was the original teacher and uncle of Rita Hayworth. Rita was originally Margarita Carmen Cansino, a direct descendant of one of the great Spanish dancers of all time. Rita Hayworth was a Brooklyn born, half quote, Spanish from Spain, half English girl who made it all the way to Hollywood, where they used electrolysis to raise her hairline substantially in order to broaden her forehead. And the studio beauticians dyed her black hair red. Okay, so Spanish from Spain is still a colorism distinction that happens in New Mexico.

[B]

It's colorism distinction across the dash.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And it's weird that it's like, oh, this is still raging on currently. What were your takeaways and insights from this part of the book where she, like, learning under Rita, but also learning, like, who she's gonna be in this world?

[B]

I had very complicated feelings because knowing Rita Moreno, like, my whole life, I always looked at her as a white Puerto Rican. So it is very interesting to hear her in this time, which is true. I don't want to discount that, like, at that time, she is considered other Puerto Rican. Spanish is considered across the diaspora, like.

[C]

Slang Spanish, country bumpkin Spanish.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

It's considered very hillbilly Spanish. So that stuff didn't surprise me. But I guess it is still, like, as someone who identifies as an Afro Latina, like, I am dark. I have been considered black my whole life, except for by the Puerto Rican community, by people who view me on first jest. They're like, you're half black and white. It's always really interesting to see, like, lighter skinned Latinos experience the same colorism in that way. Because I'm like, I don't see it myself because I'm like, I look at you and I'm like, well, you have a lot more privilege than I do. But yeah, I found that very interesting because I was like, wow. Like, I look at her as like someone who I had to be told she was Puerto Rican because I was like, oh, she looks so white growing up.

[A]

Right, right. Meanwhile, she's traveling through Hollywood and they're like, you are the most ethnic woman we've ever met in the entire world.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

It's so brutal seeing how colorism exists and changes depending on the context that she's in. There's this line in. Do you guys remember the movie White Oleander? No.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

It's Michelle Pfeiffer. It's a really dark movie based off a really dark book. I love it. But in the movie, Renee Zellweger is an actress taking care of this foster daughter. And she says to her, and this movie is made in, like, the 90s. And she says to her, there's two types of women. You can be the ingenue, which is blonde, or you can be ethnic, which is brunette. And that the only qualification for ethnic was brunette. And so when I think of that in the 90s, and then go back to the year Rita is talking about, like, oh, she is by and far away, like, the most ethnic person they'll even allow into Hollywood. Which also speaks to their racism, I would say. She really struggles with it in that in her career as she gets started, she plays every ethnicity, even when it's not even near her own ethnicity, because those are the only roles offered to her.

[C]

Yeah, she talks about this a lot.

[B]

In the book, which is insane.

[C]

And there is some hedging because she realized that people are gonna read this with a present lens and know that, like, you were playing and perpetuating stereotypes that weren't even of your own community.

[B]

Which I thought was really great of her in the book, considering her age. And when the book came out. Came out in 2013, it's not even near the conversations we were having. I would argue 2017, 2018. I thought I was very woke of her, so to speak. You know, Like, I think for her age to be able to still reflect and have perspective of what it was like back then, but also grow. It really made me admire her more.

[C]

Yeah, she's very much, like, reflecting. Like she says, looking back, I am ashamed that I did this. I am ashamed that this happened. Yeah, I hated that I had to do it, but I had to do it. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to have any roles. I would be completely disappeared. And that's such a conflict to be at. I'm sure she didn't have that internalized battle at the time. Cause it was just like, I'm trying to survive in Hollywood.

[B]

It's like she's surviving well.

[A]

She's also next to white women playing the Indian maidens. So it is not even, like, in range for her to realize that this shouldn't be happening, at least at the moment. That's what it sounded like. And so she gets little parts here and there. She gets a Broadway play that opens and closes on the same night. And then she gets a movie called so Young, so Bad. So Young, so Bad. What made them that way? All what a title for a film. And it's like these like three, like bad girls, like why they so bad? And that's what kind of launches her career. And then she is looking at who's making it in Hollywood. And she wrote this. She said, we tried to her and her mom redo my entire appearance. Of all the MGM stars in my age category, which included Diana Durbin, Debbie Reynolds and Jane Powell, the one who reigned supreme with her violet eyes and high raised bosom and tiny waist was British born 15 year old Elizabeth Taylor. And she sits down like studies her look, gets a bunch of makeup, they get a waist trainer and they basically try and make her Latina Elizabeth Taylor with her hairstyle, her waist cincher, all of it. And judging by the photos in this book, I think they succeeded.

[B]

No, they did. There are photos sometimes that I look at her and I'm like, that is Elizabeth.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And she gets discovered. They're like, you look like the Spaniard Elizabeth Taylor. And she and her mom were like, yes, exactly what we were going. And they moved to la. She gets this MGM contract. Oh yeah. She goes and sits down with Bill Grady who runs the studio. All these men, all these studio names, they're all just like one big blur to me. Like they're all just like, they're all just sims.

[B]

But I'm sure if you're like a Hollywood historian, you're like, oh. Which is like, I am very like not a historian, but I am a casual like interest deep diver of old Hollywood. And it is like, whoa. Like it is kind of crazy the rooms she was in and the prolific career she had in old Hollywood, especially to have lived to this long. A lot of these people didn't even make it to their 40s, you know. Yeah. So for her to be able to so articulately tell these stories I found very fascinating.

[A]

Oh, absolutely. And she sits down with Bill Grady and he says, your name has to go quote too Italian, bro. It ain't an Italian name. What are you talking about? She says, I didn't even have time to flinch as he starts to like think of new names out loud for her as if she's not even there. Ruby Fontino, Marcy Miranda. The names got worse. Orchid Montenegro. Wait, okay, so was this man thinking her name sounded too Italian and he's trying to make it more Spanish? Like I'm really trying to follow his train of thought here. Yeah.

[B]

Montenegro is like a jump. Like, I'm like, oh, so. So the other name is worse than Montenegro. Like, like, what are you?

[A]

What's kind of guiding you, bro? And so he said, I got it. How about Rita? After Rita Hayworth, I trembled. At least there was recognition for me. For her dance teacher. And then he finally declares, rita Moreno, that's who you are, and that's who you will be. In that moment, my old life would officially end. So she had been going by Rosita. She had also taken on Moreno, which was her mom's second husband's name. So Rita had her dad, who she left in Puerto Rico. Then her mom was with a man who she loved, who she called Papo. And then her mom left him for Eddie Moreno, and she hates him. Like, he's the worst one of all. He's terrible. Her mom meets him at, like, a radio show Rita's singing on. So she's like, oh, my God, is it my fault? And then she said, why did I take the last name of a man I despise? And she's like, I don't even know. It was just easy, and it was there. And then she's just Rita Moreno forever. Oh, that was such a brutal part of the book.

[C]

Yeah. This almost mirrors Patty Duke's memoir in a way, where there's this bifurcation of identity of, like, I'm no longer this person who is, like, the core part of my being, because she continues to refer to herself throughout this book as this little Puerto Rican girl. How did I get here? And it's just this kind of in that moment, this bifurcation of identity of, like, the little girl from Puerto Rico and the movie star that has this terrible man's last name. You're so right.

[A]

And, I mean, I feel like I give a lecture on this podcast every week about the importance of names and name changes and what happens to you when it happens to you as a kid, which it happened to me, and I feel like I talk about it so much that I'm just like, this is canon. Like, you know, especially when someone else is looking at you and is like, your name is different. Like, okay, you fucked that person. For the rest of their life, they will always see themselves as a before and after, and the after will never feel like a real person.

[B]

Yeah. Because somebody put that upon you, you know, and it's like, it's a reflection of you that doesn't feel accurate because you didn't get to make that decision for Yourself.

[A]

But even when you. I feel like at least this is my personal experience. Even when you feel like you are a part of it, like, that dad sucked and this dad's great. You're a child. Yeah, You're a child. And so to form your entire identity and change your identity as a kid, I feel like it. It's just this solid grounds that you. She does. She never has in her life. She never has a solid foundation, which.

[B]

Is so to fall back on. That's, like, the hardest part, I feel like, of the book is like realizing how tough of a life she really had. You're like, wow. Like, you really survived.

[A]

She really did survive. I feel like when I read this book, the beginning is such a beautiful, interesting whirlwind, because as a kid trying to survive, that's how you experience life. You've got these blinders on where you're just like, get to the next gig and the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And as soon as you have some stability, you wake up in the middle of this book and go, I never met my brother. And that's kind of how the book reads to me. Like, she's just trying to survive for so long. She doesn't start realizing how bad things are until she has some stability and money.

[B]

Yes. And that stability doesn't come till, like, her 30s, 40s, even.

[A]

And it comes with a terrible husband, which. Well, that's my. We'll get to him. We'll get there.

[B]

We'll get there. We'll get there.

[A]

Maybe. You guys think otherwise?

[B]

No, I agree. I think it's also a very complicated situation, but I agree. Yeah. Ultimately, I agree. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

First, we have to discuss singing in the Rain. Okay. We're going to take a quick break right now, and we'll be right back. All right. So I run around a lot. I do a lot. I'm kind of a night owl that has to wake up early. So I have the darkest circles under my eyes always. I have started putting castor oil underneath my eyes and sleeping with it every night and then on my eyelids. I have been using Thrive Cosmetics Brilliant eye brightener, which is my favorite. It's just shimmery enough. It's like an eyeshadow highlighter stick made to brighten and open your eyes. And this combo is really. Guys, I gotta say, I think. I think it's crushing it. It looks radiant. I apply it to the inner corner of my eyes to look rested and effortless. But then I also just cover the lid. It just kind of gives your eyes an extra pop. The smallest things you do can have a big impact. And when you buy from Thrive Cosmetics, every purchase goes to a cause. The cause and cosmetics that they support, including domestic violence, which is a topic that is extremely close to my heart and my life. And I love that when I am making a small purchase, I know that it's still going to help a larger purpose. Thrive Cosmetics has given over 150 million in product and cash donations to 600 giving partners and each purchase directly fuels real impact. So it is beauty with a purpose. Amplify your everyday. Go to thrivecosmetics.com glamorous for an exclusive offer of 20% off your first order. That's Thrive Cosmetics. C A U S E M E t I c s.com glamorous this episode is brought to you by FX's the Beauty Official Podcast. Join host Evan Ross Katz on the official podcast for FX's hottest new series, the Beauty, taking you behind the scenes with its amazing stars as they discuss the show's most jaw dropping moments. Featuring Evan Peters, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, Ashton Kutcher, Rebecca Hall, Bella Hadid, Meghan Trainor, Isabella Rossellini, Jessica Alexander, and Ari Grayner. Search ethics is the beauty wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, welcome back. Let's continue the conversation. First, we have to discuss Singing in the Rain, which is a favorite movie of mine. Wah wah. It's like everyone's favorite movie. But God, this movie is so good. I don't, I don't believe. I'm sorry, I don't believe all the classics hold up.

[C]

I don't.

[B]

No.

[A]

Singing in the Rain holds the fuck up. And seeing her as a villain, I just loved this.

[C]

And that was a role where she didn't have to play a Latina or she didn't have to play an ethnic role.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Which was like a huge. And Gene Kelly, she wrote Gene Kelly picked me for Singing in the Rain. The icing on the sweet prize is that I would not be playing a coy little ethnic maid with my own pigeon accent. I was playing Zelda Xanders, the ingenue who becomes jealous of Debbie Reynolds. It was refreshing after being cloyingly sweet for so long that I could play the nasty little snitch. And I wore the most gorgeous silk flapper dresses ever, which I love. And then she wrote this. Debbie Reynolds was actually more of a novice than I was. I was a dancer at least. And Debbie had never danced. She had been a gymnast. I will say she worked hard to catch on and I worked hard to perfect the intricate steps laid out by Gene Kelly, who was pleasant but strict about getting it right. Do we read this as Shade to Debbie Reynolds?

[C]

Yeah, I did Shade.

[B]

A story of a lifetime of being a person of color anywhere. It's like you have to work twice as hard to get half as far. And you know what? I'll give it to her. She's like, I worked so hard.

[A]

She's like, I was a dancer, and Debbie didn't even dance.

[B]

I'm not even the lead, you know?

[C]

Yeah, no, you're right.

[A]

I did not know Debbie was not a dancer before this movie. That's kind of astonishing.

[B]

I didn't either, because obviously, the movie is all old Hollywood. It's expected that they all have to sing, dance act. You know, you had to be a triple threat back then to the point.

[A]

Where I want us to fact check this afterwards. I want us to make sure Debbie Reynolds actually hadn't.

[C]

Well, I do know that Debbie did struggle with the choreography, with working with Gene Kelly, because there was a story that she told once where she talked about crying under piano because she couldn't get the steps right. Fred Astaire runs into her and, like, teaches her, helps her with the choreography. And that's how she mastered her, like, choreography of Singing in the Rain.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. That is really unbelievable, too. Debbie Reynolds, such a challenge. We've covered her memoir on this podcast. It's one of my favorites. And to think that she was in over her head but still got this huge leading role is wild. And, yeah, readers over here being, like, well trained for years, but have fun, Debbie.

[C]

I'm just a little bit olive, but I, you know, I just can't get the role.

[B]

Yeah, I'm a brunette at the end of the day.

[A]

Brunette at the end of the day. Debbie is not gone from the book, y'.

[C]

All.

[B]

I know.

[A]

I feel like she sprinkles her in enough to know that she was always in a silent competition with her is how I felt.

[B]

It was probably her first, like, real competition, as in, like, her first introduction to Hollywood, her first main competitor, like, where she saw, like, okay, this is the expectation of me, and I have to, like, silently hopefully be better than her in every way, because this is the type of person I'm always gonna be running against.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So she's in another show when all of a sudden her father, Paco from Puerto Rico, who she last saw when she was five years old, had gotten backstage by telling the stage manager, I am her long lost father. And he's brought along his new family. Crazy. Don't bring them to the first meeting. Paco Ra. So he gets back stage. She says, he hugged me with tears in his eyes and said something like, I know I should have tried. Meaning, I guess, that he'd failed as my father failed. How about disappeared, become invisible? How about non existent? I was angry with this stranger who had seen me in films, now suddenly showed up. This stranger who'd never made an effort to help my mother out in any way, who drove her away from home with his cheating. I was. Was further angered that he'd brought a sob story with him to get a pass backstage. I'm her long lost father. Also important to mention he has a new family with him. Francisco's not there.

[B]

That was heartbreaking. That's. I literally wrote my notes. I was like, where is Francisco? Like, what do you mean?

[A]

Like, yes, and how are you? In New York with a new family. And. Yeah.

[B]

Where did you leave your other child?

[A]

Yeah. And so she has to go back on stage. And she's like, write down your address and phone number, I guess. And he writes it down. That's. This is their only encounter. And then in a rage, she goes backstage and writes, you were never in my life. I have nothing to say to you now. Don't try and contact me ever again. I hesitated over the signature. Who was signing this? Rita Moreno or the little girl he never bothered to see? I pressed down hard on the point of the fountain pen, and the fountain pen sputtered its royal blue blood. Rosita. And then later she writes, was it days, weeks, or months later that I regretted mailing that letter? Now I feel the ache of lost chances, My chance to know more, to hear his reasons or excuses I tossed off in my anger and opportunity. Is there anything sadder than permanent regret?

[B]

That broke my heart? That was, like, one of the hardest parts for me to read. Cause it's just like, I think when you know people who have come from broken families, when you kind of have a little bit of a broken family yourself, I am always thinking about that. Like, lost time, I think, is some of, like, the saddest thing ever, because we have such a finite time, amount of time on this earth. And to think of the what shoulda, coulda, woulda is, like, my anxiety that I'm always having to, like, be, like, some things. There's nothing you can do about it. And so I really related to her in that moment where it's like. It's so hard. I mean.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, as someone who comes from shattered glass, if we're talking about broken families, and definitely wrote my angry letter of, like, don't ever fucking talk to me again. So I'm like, I really, really relate to this. I think think if I'm gonna be just a tad bit on her side with the regret man, if he'd ever showed up to a show I was in and wanted to see me, maybe you should talk to him. I mean, I don't know. I'm kind of from the land of, like, your dad forgetting your birthday and your name and, like, hoping he never has to see you again. So maybe there's something to be said to him traveling all the way and actually wanting to see you.

[B]

It's like, you have to remember she's also so young at this point, and it's like, of course she's operating from, like, absolute anger. It's the 40s. There's no thet or 50s. 40s. 50s. It's like, there's no therapy, really, in this conversation right now.

[A]

Yeah. You had seven minutes backstage.

[B]

You had seven minutes to speak to him.

[A]

He has his new wife there. Yeah.

[B]

And kids.

[C]

I mean.

[A]

Yeah. No, it's brutal. A part of me is like, yeah, I bet she does wish she had wanted to be in contact with him so. Since at least he did try once, which is so much more than others.

[B]

But it's also like, you're the dad.

[A]

But also, you're the dad. And you. You didn't show up until she was fucking famous.

[B]

Famous.

[A]

And you brought your new little fam. So I. I get both sides of it. And who knows? Had she ever reconnected if there would have been anything beautiful there to find. But she would have had more answers than she does now. And so I do understand the regret.

[C]

Yeah. She was so activated in that moment, I think it was impossible for her because she hadn't confronted it, you know? And I don't know what her mother told her about her father or what her. The mother told the father to stay away from them or any of that situation. I have no idea. That's not only for that, and it's not explored, but I completely understand where she was coming from. Because.

[B]

But, like, coming from, like, generational Puerto Rican trauma, I feel like they just didn't talk about it, because I do. That's something I've been trying to explore in my show. And, like, with my own family and interviews I've done, it just is something where, like, they just. They shut the door and they never look back. So it's like she might have tried to ask her mom, and her mom probably didn't tell her anything.

[C]

You really have to. Like, it's like pulling teeth with, like.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Latino. It's like several conversations over decades that you find out the truth.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

And some coquito, maybe, over some coquito.

[A]

Which, by the way, I gotta tell everyone that Christina made me her father's coquito recipe for Christmas. And it was the best drink I've ever drank. I also think, you know, and this is not speaking culturally, but I think it's really fascinating when you experience trauma as a family, how often you actually don't speak about it with each other. And now the amount of therapy we have to do that. But even in my own life, I realized, like, I had never spoken to my older brother. I'd never asked him a question that I hadn't known for 30 years. And.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To the point where it hadn't even occurred to me to ask him. Because I think trauma can really isolate you, even when you're next to someone who could talk about it with you.

[B]

Yes, absolutely.

[A]

And so I really feel that in the. In this part of the book, and at this moment, her mom has had a son with Eddie Moreno named Dennis. And then her mom sends Dennis away to military school right after this play.

[B]

So that is the part where I was like, something's wrong with her mom. Because I'm like, before I was like, okay, maybe it's the dad. Like, maybe, whatever. But I'm like, then you just, like, shipped your other son off. So, like, you just hate the men in your life.

[A]

I don't know. Or like, her mom wants to do her own thing and Rita's. Yeah. Something very bad is there that we don't fully get, because I don't think Rita knows. Yeah. But at this moment in time, she's actually dropped from her contract, even though she played a lot of roles in little movies, but nothing huge. And she says, like, I decided I am not getting rejected like this. And then in some crazy chance fashion, she had taken photos that then a Life magazine editor is just looking over these other photos and is like, who is this girl? It's this amazing photo of her that we'll post on the Patreon where she's looking over her shoulder and her teeth are kind of bared and it's stunning. And they put her on the COVID of Life magazine.

[B]

Insane.

[A]

Which she's not even a famous actress. Just out of nowhere. They were like, she looks cool.

[B]

They're like, she's literally stunning. Drop it. Gorgeous. We gotta put her on something.

[A]

And also, I think they were running like, a scandalosos.

[C]

Yeah. Like, she's sexualized. She's sexualized in a way that a lot of Latinas are. And so this the, like, headline or the COVID copy on that is Rita Moreno, an actress's catalog of sex, Sex and innocence.

[A]

Yeah. But from that, another head of a studio sees the COVID of Life magazine, like, who's that girl? Get me that girl. As only your career can take off in old Hollywood. I do. I. I do wish moments like that still happen. That, like, I know someone would, like, scroll TikTok. Maybe that does happen. They're like, who is at bebop? Get me them in here now.

[B]

I mean, as a Beyonce Beyhive Stan. Beyonce does that shit. She be on the Internet looking at people and being like, them. I want to work with them. That's how the twins became so prevalent, because she found them on YouTube.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And she was like, I want to work with them.

[A]

Okay. Beyonce, the new head of studios. Okay. So she then plays other roles, I would say most notably, she is in the King and I, and she writes. She was like, I was not the best person for the role. I wasn't even Asian. I was up against an actress who was Asian, and I got the role over her.

[C]

France Nguyen is the name of the actress. Yeah.

[A]

But then she gets this role, and so then she's in the King and I, which is, like, another thing that, like, catapults her to success.

[C]

Yeah, she said that I felt wrong for this role. Didn't stop me from fighting for it.

[B]

I mean, it's survival, you know, Like, I mean, to this day, it's. Even though there's way more, like, rights and things, it says, like, I still think being a woman in any sort of, like, entertainment field, it's tough.

[A]

Well, this, I think, is when we throw to Christina, because one fascinating thing is that Rita Moreno is going to win an Oscar for Anita and west side Story. And then Christina, Chelsea.

[C]

That makes Rita the first ever Latina to win an Oscar. And since then, there's only been, like, a handful of Latinas who have won Oscars, including last year, Zoe Saldana won for Emilia Perez, and Ariana DeBose won in 2022 for playing Anita in West side Story, the same role Rita won for almost 60 years previously. And actually, Rita was in the room when Ariana won that award.

[B]

The divine inspiration that is Rita Moreno. You are staring at me right now.

[C]

And I'm So grateful.

[A]

Your Anita paved the way for tons of Anitas like me. And I love you so much. That was such a beautiful speech and I think really highlights how much Rita means to the culture and the role of Anita. And. And yeah, it's just such a special moment. So. Okay, let's fast forward a little bit. We're on page 124. She's obviously made it in Hollywood. She's a big star. She's doing things here and there. And she's at this big event and she says she started playing a private little game that she called Izzies, where she is making eyes at a man, he's making eyes back at her. And she writes in the book, I have no doubt that this man would have sent someone over to my table to escort me up upstairs had she simply given the signal she was into it. And she said, no doubt whatsoever. And then she wrote this. Imagine my shock, then weeks later, when the red headed man who had flirted so boldly with me reappeared on the COVID of Life magazine and I discovered who he was. The young senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy.

[B]

Okay, I actually did write this in my note. Do we believe she actually flirted with jfk?

[A]

I am fully of the. Like, this shouldn't be in the book.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

It's like, for what? This was such a.

[C]

So random.

[A]

She's like, trust on God, I could have had that day. And you're like, I do believe you, Rita, but in the memoir of your life, I think especially because it wasn't.

[B]

Like, then she had an affair with jfk. You know, it's like, it was like.

[A]

All right, what do you think, Christina?

[C]

I think part of it is like, she knew she had to serve tea with this memoir.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

She was like, this is like, this.

[C]

Is a little bit.

[A]

She's got so much tea coming.

[C]

I know. I think she really wanted to cover her bases with tea.

[A]

All right, well, there's another tiny, little, sad little piece of tea.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is. She talks about the Hollywood studio system and how you're set up on these PR dates. And the publicists are like, this is important for you to be a starlet in Hollywood. And she soon realizes there's a lot of lanes where you are essentially being set up for sex work in order to remain a starlet in Hollywood and get roles. And like, oh, if you date this one guy.

[B]

Heartbreaking.

[A]

Yeah. And she talks about this, like, really disgusting world and how she finds out she's in it by being set up on a date with, quote, my Date for the evening was to be Harry Carl, a shoe magnet who later became famous not only as the shoe magnet who married Debbie Reynolds, but as the bogus billionaire who bankrupted Debbie. Now, please go listen to our Debbie Reynolds episode, because. So Debbie talks about this marriage, and she has a lot of, like, really tough, unfair marriages. Husbands who are bad at her. And when she finally marries again, it's the worst one of all. It's Carl and Rita, early on, goes on a date and realizes, like, how lecherous and horrible and awful he is. And that man just kept at it until he later marries Debbie. It made me so sad.

[C]

I love how she dismisses him. In the book, she said, I later discovered that despite being such a homely troll, Carl had an insatiable appetite for beautiful young women. Apparently, I wasn't his type, though I'm still grateful for that today. Perhaps in this instance, being a Latina helped. He was no gentleman, but he seemed to prefer blondes.

[A]

I love her Hollywood play, too.

[B]

That was so good. But honestly, as a brown girl who grew up in the south, this has happened to me on more than one occasion where it's like, scary, scary men going for my friends who are white, and then me being like, oh, my God, I feel so ugly. But then, like, reflecting back as an adult now being, like, a little grateful because I was never their type. And I could have ended up in some really unsafe and, like, scary, sad.

[A]

Situations because the racism embedded in their predator.

[B]

Yeah, save me pedophilic a few times in college. Wow.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's definitely what Rita says where she was basically like, no, he was only gonna prey on white women. And so I escaped, and she. She literally goes running out of the party barefoot and gets a ride home with two Mexican men who she can speak Spanish to, who take her home safely.

[C]

I really love how she put this in the book. The men didn't ask why they understood. Without a word, they sat me down on the front seat. One of them gently put his work jacket over my shoulders. They drove me home without a word. They were the only gentlemen I met that night.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, my God. At this point in the book, this is where she's like, okay, time to get into relationships. I have two little writing gripes with the book. One is that there's a good amount of repetition to the point where I can't understand why an editor didn't pull out a sentence that she'll repeat kind of over and over again, or a story she's already told us comes back.

[B]

I'm glad to hear you say that, because I thought I was like, losing.

[A]

It a little when I was. No, it reminded me of this quote Matt Damon recently gave where he said, netflix wants you to repeat the plot of the movie several times for people who are watching it while on their phones. But when you're a reader, like, that is not what's happening. And I don't know why. Every premise was repeated all the time. And then the other writing gripe I have is that in the middle of the book, this turns into men's More, where she tells us the history of other. Like, I know more about Howard Hughes and Marlon Brando sometimes than I know about Rita.

[B]

Truly.

[A]

She started giving, like, their backstory, their accolades, like, where they grew up.

[C]

My biggest gripe about this section of the book, it turns into a mix of, like, encyclopedic, like, writing about these men's backstories. And I'm like, you don't have to establish who Elvis is. You can do that in a sentence.

[B]

Talking about his mom and his relationship with his mom.

[C]

And like, you see parts of Rita come out in the writing when it's those clever, like, this gentleman preferred blondes. But then it shifts into this, like, kind of elder stateswoman of old Hollywood. And almost in the Lauren Bacall way where, like, this is my record. I'm setting a historical record, and I want to include as much information as possible so that that record is sound and lush. And I wonder how much of this is also rooted in how. How much disconnect she had from her own consciousness and body during this time because she was in such a survival mode or she doesn't feel safe to have a lot of internalized POV on this section. I don't know.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because, I mean, this book is only 288 pages. There are so many sections of her life and details that are fully missing from this book. But, like, I know what Howard Hughes ordered for dinner, and it was peas that he moved around on the plate and organized by size.

[C]

And it's like, Rita, I've seen the Aviator. I got it.

[A]

Yeah, I know. And so I want to move on to Marlon Brando. So just quickly I'm going to say my favorite highlight from her, I'm going to put in quotes dating Howard Hughes, which was really just her showing up places. And he was there and then. And they platonically left. This was the last time she saw him. We shook hands and he spoke in his high aspirating Reedy little voice. You are a beautiful child. I never saw him again, which, honestly.

[B]

It was, like, good for him for being like, you're a child, and I can't date you.

[C]

Is that.

[A]

Do we think that's what it was, or do we think he was like, yes, I have dated a beautiful child.

[B]

Oh, maybe.

[A]

I don't know. All right, so the biggest part of the book, I would say, is her love affair with Marlon Brando. And there is so much to get through, but basically, they meet on a set, and they have a love affair for years and years and years and years. And this is how she starts one of the chapters about him. I am wearing a scent vent vert by Balmain as I write these words. It is a scent that Marlon Brando often wore. It's a woman's perfume, but Marlon often used women's perfumes, and this was his favorite. For more than 50 years, I have.

[C]

Been wearing Vince vert.

[A]

I inhale the memory of Marlon. I can almost feel his smooth, polished skin and taste his sweet breath. I remember how he spoke to me, how he played the drums, how he made love, and how I almost. Almost died from loving him. Okay, Rita, you've been wearing Marlon brando's cologne for 50 years. Like, we've got a problem. Yeah.

[B]

I had so many feelings on the Marlon chapter of it all, because at first, I have done a lot of Googling on this before reading the book, and I didn't realize their love affair was as strong as the book made it out to be.

[A]

So. So, yes, I'm gonna call it a disturbing relationship, because having read one bajillion million memoirs, Dringo, Marlon Brando has showed up, as he does in almost every single memoir, and he wandering through. He in love with you. Like, he's biting Barbra Streisand's back. He is calling Whoopi Goldberg and is like, hello, I'm Marlon Brando. And she's like, hey. And he's like, we should hang out one day. She's like, okay, cool. This is in our Whoopi episode. She goes home. Her piano is plane. And she's like, who the hell is in my house? Marlon Brando. He hung up with her, got her maid to let him into her house, plays piano, has her make him dinner, then, like, walks away. So Rita really writes about Marlon. Like, me and him, me and him, me and him. And I want to be like, have you read the other memoirs? Because Marlon was traipsing through every household making promises he couldn't, and Overtures.

[B]

Yes. And I do feel like that's why it was, like, interesting to read her perspective on it, because it's clear this man ruined her life in a way.

[A]

Right.

[B]

He is someone who, like, to the depths of her last dying breath, she will be thinking about Marlon Brando. But it's sad to know. The reality is she is just one of many. And the way that obviously, we'll get into it, but by the end of his life, she still has this idea that she was the one, though. But in reality, as you have read all these other books, it's like, were you or were you just. And, yeah.

[A]

And she's really trying to prove to us that she is the one who was his favorite.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So a few details. I'm just gonna read.

[C]

This was such a hard thing for me to. To, like.

[A]

I know. It was harder. It's like the worst, most toxic man being put on a pedestal in this book. Okay, I'm just gonna read a few details throughout this chapter. Sometimes Marlon would appear with his pet wild raccoon, Russell. I do love that. Okay. I don't believe that Marlon ever meant to be deliberately cruel to me. He was in the throes of his own compulsion, which left him with insatiable sexual needs. Perhaps he was the most desirable man in the world. His mother left him emotionally through her alcoholism. While his first love, a teenage Danish nanny named Ermie, who, according to Marlon, slept naked with him while he was a child of seven, eventually left as well. And then she said Ermie was part Indonesian and most certainly the inspiration for Marlin's obsessive desire for women with dusky skin like mine. All his life, Marlin preferred women of color. I was an early and lasting example. But Marlon compulsively bedded Tahitians, East Indians, Native American Indians, Mexicans, Filipinos, Asians, Jamaicans. Just name any ethnicity with a 10. All of his children are of mixed race.

[B]

I literally put in my notes, Marlon Brando being woke. But also, it's because he fetishizes them from childhood trauma. Woof.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

She talks about in the book how, like, he's the reason she got a therapist. He's the reason that she became politically active. He's the reason xyz. But I'm like, but he still harmed you so objectively. Like, not like, oh, it was toxic. It was, like, abuse. Like, he abused you and probably abused many women and 15 children.

[A]

Yeah. Okay, let me read something else she said. Yet. Month after month, year after year, into my mid-20s and beyond, I was Unable to refuse Marlon when he came around, no matter what he did or what I heard, Our on again, off again affair continued despite the fact that in 1957, Marlon married Anna Cash Fee at her insistence, LOL Shade, because she was pregnant with his first child. That marriage lasted for only two years. In 1960. 60, Marlon married Mexican actress Movita Castaneda, an old flame of many years. That marriage again lasted just two years. He had children with both of these women. Christian, his oldest son, with Anna, and Michael, and Rebecca with Movita. None of these hard truths lessened my obsession. Marlon was that irresistible to me, and I was determined to conquer him. And then later, she would say, yes, he gave me my therapist by saying, you really need to see somebody, Rita. You have a lot of problems. Problems. End quote.

[B]

And it's like, babe, look at the problem.

[C]

Marlin, you are the problem.

[A]

And I. I think it's wild that, like, he married other women, he had children with other women, and she's still like, but I am the number one. And so she sets out to make him jealous, to try and get him back constantly.

[C]

I wonder how many times they might have seen each other despite him being married. Because early on, when she talks about the moment she actually lost her virginity to somebody that worked on one of her sets, he was married. And she writes about, she knew it was wrong, but she didn't care because she was consumed by lust. And so I wonder if she was rationalizing in her head that he might be married to this woman. But he always comes back to me.

[B]

Oh, 100%. And I think partly, like, she mentions at the beginning of the book how her mother cheated on her dad that she loved. Like, not her father from Puerto Rico, but, like, the man that she. She always felt like was her dad. Her mom left him a nice man for the man she hates, Moreno. And then it's, like, clear by the end of the book that she's had five husbands. Her mom. So it's like she is looking at her mother who also, like, quickly fled relationships often. She clearly doesn't have a lot of models in her life. It's sad. It's sad to see how much trauma reflected in how she behaved in her relationships.

[C]

It was very much normalized for her to chase men for stability, for self worth. Even if they treated you terribly.

[A]

Yes. This is what it hits me, though. Like, when I was. How old was I? I don't know, like, 23, 24. I was obsessed with the biggest loser, improv loser. Okay. And he was just like, he was Bad on stage. Do you know what I mean? Like, I was just so down bad for this dummy me. And at 23, 24, when he was like, get away from me, I was like, oh, so hot. Oh, he wants me. But then he called me. So he's fighting it. He's fighting it, his urges. He loves me. And I feel pain thinking about if I right now was like, God, the great love of my life, that loser toxic boy. And I feel like Rita was in love with that toxic man for the rest of her life.

[B]

The rest of her life.

[A]

Supposed to be a fleeting experience in your twenties where you learn that the guy who's a dick to you and goes and marries other people don't really love you. And instead, I think she learned the opposite lesson, which was it was always me.

[C]

And part of me thinks that maybe because she had suffered so much trauma, that the love had to be great for her to endure it in order to give it some worth or I don't know.

[B]

But yeah, I will say, I think when you're that young. And also, he's like the biggest deal in the world at that time, you know?

[C]

Yeah, I think we like, do like, we don't have content context for like how much of a deal he was like, yeah, in our lived experience, because we're like, oh, yeah, what's one of the big stars of Hollywood?

[A]

But like, it's like if Justin timberlake was that 22 year old improv boy in my story.

[C]

Yeah, Justin Bieber.

[B]

If it was like bad Bunny. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, it's like he is like the biggest deal in the world and.

[A]

He wants to like you every six months. Yeah, maybe I would feel pretty special. I'd be like, he's still calling.

[B]

He did that whole like old man education thing, which I like. Like I did. I was 20 dating a 25 year old who was evil. And I didn't know that because I was so young. And you know, you're like, oh my God, they're so worldly. Like they're teaching me so many things, but it's like to infantilize you.

[C]

She does say that. She's like, he actually taught me a lot about manners. And this is why I want to grab this because she talks about this a lot. She said I talked too loudly. Marlon made a great effort to help me understand that everybody in the restaurant did not have to hear what I was saying to him.

[A]

And she likes that lesson. That hurt.

[B]

As a Puerto Rican woman. That hurt.

[C]

There are so many Times because she references loudness. Like whether she's talking about this aunt that they moved in when they came back from Puerto Rico, or a critique that she gets from other people about her boisterousness, how lively she is. And it's turned into. Because of. She's living in this other norm. And it's something that I had to unlearn too, because I'm like, this is who I am. It's not bad. It's just different culturally because I've been exposed to different cultures.

[A]

Who sets the motherfucking volume?

[C]

That's what I'm saying. The people who often do this judgment don't have enough lived experience, cross cultural experience to know what whatever normal is is just their own normal and not like a universal normal that exists, yo.

[A]

Absolutely, Absolutely. I'm so glad you said that. And yeah, it was brutal. And such a theme throughout memoirs. We should Dringo it. Like when a boyfriend. When they're like, I got all my culture from my boyfriend. Isn't he amazing? Which is just what Diane Keaton wrote about Woody Allen, which is an episode we just dropped. Anyways, gotta move on. Okay?

[B]

So, woof.

[A]

She's like, I know I'm gonna get Marlon back. And the best way to get Marlon Brando back is to make him jealous because he hates when I fuck anyone else, even though he can fuck the.

[B]

World, even though he's married with children, literally.

[A]

So she's like, I know I'll fuck Elvis. So she then does the men's more of Elvis Presley, where she gives his history, where it's like, okay, Rita, you're getting some of this wrong, but whatever. And I'm gonna skip most of it and just get to the part where she pretty much ends it. And it's like, he was pretty boring. His favorite book was the Bible. He was bad in bed and he didn't eat. And I want to say, as someone who is famously called Elvis a chode on this podcast, and every time I do, there are, like two Elvis historians who send me death threats and my DMs are open. I guess he is a chode.

[B]

Okay? He is.

[A]

It's true. And you should go listen to our Priscilla Presley episode where we hunted down all the details about how he truly was afraid to go down on women until he met Cybil Shepherd.

[B]

That is insane.

[C]

That.

[A]

And Rita's here confirming, like, he didn't like to have sex. He just wanted to dry home.

[C]

She's like, we did something called grinding. And I was like, oh, you're like, Babe, it's 2013.

[B]

I think we know what grinding is.

[A]

Yeah. And she was like, one night I just realized he's really boring to talk to. He's really boring to kiss. He's really boring to grind with. And Marlon called me. So now I'm out of here.

[B]

So I gotta go.

[C]

She also drops that Natalie Wood stormed out on him because he refused to have sex with her.

[A]

Yeah. He was really. Listen, I know I was just very rude, but he was clearly really struggling. Really, really struggling. This is also not excusing in any way. I think purposely because he was struggling so much sexually, it's why he went after a 14 year old wife. And still it because he needed to bring in a woman in his life who didn't realize how fudged up he was. Yeah.

[B]

And someone who doesn't know about sex that maybe isn't asking for that, you know, isn't going to be pressuring him in this weird way because she is so innocent.

[A]

Yeah. And I think, God, so many Durangos. A Dringo, historically, is a shitty man being like, I know I'll try and date an underage woman because she's never seen another penis before and cannot judge mine. Mine. Yes. And I wish Elvis had gotten help. Blessings to him. Okay, please don't send me death threats. Now she gets back into the book and she's like, marlin did not practice birth control. He believed it was the woman's responsibility. Cool guy.

[C]

Woke.

[A]

Woke. Yeah. You're woke, boy. He was obviously very fertile. He ended up having 15 children. For reasons so deep I have not yet nursed them. I allowed myself to get pregnant by Marlon.

[B]

No, this is not your.

[C]

This is not only your fault.

[A]

Okay. She said, maybe subconsciously I thought he would offer me marriage since during the course of our affair he had married two other women and fathered children with both. But that is not what occurred. To my shock and horror, Marlon immediately arranged for an abortion.

[B]

This broke my heart because I do believe that is why she got pregnant. Like, I think she in her heart of hearts thought. Which is a story as Tales of Time with many women. Well, if I get knocked up, they'll choose me, they'll pick me, they'll love me. And to see him venomantly like that to me was like, what is it about Rita that he feels like he can disrespect her in a different way than these other women? That he was willing and able to have their children? I didn't understand that, but it made me hurt for her very deeply because it's like you are looking at the fact that he's had 15 children. He's had many women pregnant. He clearly has a type which is women of color. But what is it about.

[A]

He did marry the first two when they got pregnant.

[B]

He did marry the first two. It's like, what about you? I'm sure that wound is so deep that it's like, what about me is so unlovable that you wanted to kill our child? You know, I mean, obviously I believe in pro choice, but it's like, in her head, I'm sure she's.

[A]

I think in her head. Yeah, yeah. Because also, it's like she should have the choice, and she should have abortion.

[B]

Care, proper abortion care.

[A]

And. And it wasn't her choice, and it wasn't what she wanted. And this abortion is done. Who's maybe not even. Yeah. First off, it's illegal back then. It is someone who she now doesn't even know was a real doctor because they don't do it properly. And she starts to bleed out and has to go to the hospital.

[B]

Sepsis. Yeah.

[C]

And Marlon's response to this was that he had been taken and that the abortionist had not earned his fee and that Marlon wanted his money back.

[B]

Yeah. Didn't care about Rita and all. Which is like, what fucks me up about, like, her perspective of Marlon moving forward after that moment. Because I'm like, in your lowest moment, showed you how little he actually gave about you. Like, how little of a fuck he gave about you. And then you still, for the rest of your life, hold him in this high regard. Is mind blowing to me, but I.

[A]

Think what you said perfectly and horrifyingly explains exactly what came next, which is she did want to have the child, but had the abortion because Marlon wanted her to. They then continue the affair, but she's dying inside. She goes through all of these problems in the hospital. She sees that he doesn't care about her, all of the reasons you just laid out. She then sleeps with him, wakes up in the morning, realizes she has to end her affair with Marlon.

[B]

Therefore, she should end her life, which is so.

[A]

She then attempts to die by suicide. And hours later, according to Rita, it was Marlin's longtime assistant who came in, thought she was just asleep in the bed, but after hours pass, realizes something's deeply wrong. And because they find her, they are then able to get her to the hospital in time. And she said, I still owe everything to Marlon because he had originally suggested I get a therapist.

[B]

And you're like, babe, he put you in the hospital.

[A]

What are you doing? And she said. The therapist says to her, rita, you must never, ever see him again.

[C]

It will kill you.

[A]

He told Marlon exactly the same thing. Do not ever see Rita again. You will kill her. And her mom and her brother Dennis show up in the hospital, and they're like, did you not even think of us? And she realizes, no, I was so consumed by Marlon and her own depression. She also mentions that maybe she's taking a medication for thyroid that.

[B]

Yeah. Really might have interacted with it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. But that after that moment, she decides everything is going to change and she's never going to see Marlon again.

[C]

Yeah. That was tough. That was tough to read to give context. This happened on April 19, 1961. She had just wrapped filming on west side story in December 1960. So this is a couple months. Months. And it's before the movie comes out. So the movie comes out in October 1961. So she does, like, the movie's not even out yet. She doesn't even know what's gonna happen. And to think that we could have lost her before this happened, before she had the chance to, like, really be a star and what she would accomplish. This is absolutely devastating to read for me.

[A]

Yeah. I can't believe the timing of this. That's what got me the most. That. Yeah. She had already gotten Anita in West side Story, which was just the role of a lifetime. Yeah. And, yeah. She then has to go through all of this, get Marlon out of her life, and that's when she wins the Oscar.

[C]

And that's also, like, what's so significant about suicide in general? It's like, you don't know what good is coming for you if you just hold on for a little bit longer.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. And how. I think the two things that really, obviously, she's framing the story. My love for Marlon almost killed me. When I look at this story, I see she's taking a medication that might have really messed with her mental health. Yes. And the second thing is that she's extremely isolated. She's not talking to her mom. She's not talking to her brother. She does not have friends around her. She's only dealing with Marlon. And I think fighting isolation and really dealing with your mental health medically. Like, had those two things been in play, I don't think she would have ended up here either.

[B]

And she just experienced a huge trauma.

[A]

Oh, my God. The trauma of the abortion and, like, all that she had to go through. You're so right.

[C]

And she's Very clear how tough the west side Story shoot was also both, like, mentally and physically because of Jerome Robbins and all that stuff.

[A]

So let's get into west side Story. Tell me some highlights. You had Christina from that. From those chapters.

[C]

So I love to learn that she was approached to play Maria in the Broadway version, but she was so afraid because of the bombs that happened during her stage career that she didn't think she would be capable to do the role. And. And so eventually, when it came time around to do the movie version of west side Story, she knew she wanted to be in it, and she was up for the role of Anita, which was initially played by Chita Rivera in the Broadway version. But Cheetah wasn't either wasn't available or she wasn't. No, no, no, no.

[A]

We read Cheetah's memoir on this podcast. Cheetah was available and livid.

[C]

Yes, she does touch on that. So Rita actually had a friend who had done a regional tour as Anita, and she asked her to show her how to do some of the steps. So she already knew some of the choreography going into it, which I was like, she does try, like, her best. She gives it her own.

[B]

No, she is so talented. Reading this book, I was like, wow. I feel like the people in my life, like, the Puerto Ricans in my life, we really. If, like, were about something, we're giving it 110%. And I think that's why there are so many Puerto Rican artists. Artists out there, because it's like. It is, like, this magic that's, like, innate, but also, it's like, we're gonna work so hard. I don't know any Puerto Ricans that aren't working as hard as they can to achieve whatever that their goal is set to.

[C]

I also like to think that we're naturally charismatic. That's who we are. Like, you know, and so, like, you can't deny the shine that we have within. And so, yeah, she does talk about having that thyroid condition at this time, and she's like, it made my eyes bulge. And I was looking back, watching clips for this recording.

[B]

I did, too.

[C]

Oh, my God. You can see, like, her eyes are a little, like, swollen. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know. I just. I still get chills anytime I watch her perform America. Even though the lyrics to that song and she talks about it briefly in the book are rough. Like, her character denigrates Puerto Rico. And she talks about this in the documentary about her life that came out in 2021. And she was very important to Note that. That, like, it wasn't. Wasn't what the creators felt about Puerto Ricans and Puerto Rico. It was what her character, specifically Anita, was feeling about Puerto Rico. And so, like, I can kind of see it through that lens. But it must have been devastating to have to say these really denigrating lyrics about an island that already is, like, suffering so much. Always the hurricanes blowing, always the population growing, and they're generally better than what's actually in the stage play. The stage play lyrics are way worse, but it's still tough. And she talks about the difficulty of having to be, like, one of the only Puerto Ricans in the cast. And they still put makeup on her to be dark. And she's like, I'm Puerto Rican. What are you doing? So I can read that quote, if that's okay.

[A]

Chelsea? Yeah, please.

[C]

She said, one of the few things I disdained while filming the movie was the makeup used to paint the Puerto Ricans as the same color. We Sharks are all the same homogeneous brown. Our gang, including me, was a uniform tobacco color. And that was just plain wrong and inaccurate. Puerto Ricans with their very genetic ancestry, Spanish, Taino, Indian, black, Dutch, are born with a broad palette of skin colors from, oh, this is. Made me uncomfortable. Outright white to true black.

[B]

I do have a thought on this, though. I read that, and then I was like, this is before in the Heights comes out the Moon movie.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

To give context to anyone listening who doesn't know. Basically, there was criticism about the casting of in the Heights.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

That they did not cast Afro Latinos.

[B]

More diverse Afro Latinos, for a movie set in Washington Heights, New York, which is a very Caribbean, which has a.

[C]

Very prominent Afro Latino population. Yeah.

[A]

And then Rita Moreno, I don't remember which one, but I know there's like, a talk show she was on.

[C]

It was with Stephen Colbert on the Late Show. She was on the show to promote her documentary, which was executive produced by Lin Manuel Miranda. And at the time, Lin Manuel Miranda was getting that critique for the film adaptation of in the Heights. And she asked Steven if they can talk about the controversy. And they do. And then he asks her, so are.

[A]

You saying that while you may understand where people's concerns come from, that perhaps it's misplaced in criticizing him in this? Well, I'm simply saying, can't you just wait a while and leave it alone?

[C]

There's a lot of people who are.

[A]

Puerto Ricano, who are also from Guatemala, who are dark and who are also fair. We are all colors in Puerto Rico. And this is how it is. And I just. It would be so nice if they hadn't come up with that and left it alone just for now.

[C]

She said that and then a couple days later she like corrected herself. According to LA Times, it happened less than 24 hours from when she made those remarks. And she said, quote, I'm incredibly disappointed with myself. While making a statement on the defense of Lin Manuel Miranda on the Colbert show last night, I was clearly dismissive of black lives that matter in our Latin community. It is so easy to forget how celebration for some is lament for others. In addition to applauding Lynn for his wonderful movie version of in the Heights, let me add my appreciation for his sensitivity and resolve to be more inclusive and of the Afro Latino community going forward. See, you can teach an old dog new tricks. And listen, I don't think that absolves her from what she said on Colbert. Initially, those words had impact because of who she is in Hollywood and what her status is. And I can try to sort of look at it and understand maybe she was speaking from a place of internalized racism and like having this scarcity mindset that was shaped by how few opportunities she actually had in Hollywood. But I think we can hold that critique of her remarks as wrong when we also give context for why that might have been her response to the criticism.

[A]

Thank you for breaking that down, Christina. And you know, I have to say I think it is so nice to hear that she changed her mind so quickly. And one thing I think about is that you only know what you know. And it sounds like once she was more educated, she knew more and instantly changed her mind. Yeah. Also, you know, again, the, the problem is just not on individuals and that like even on this podcast, if I'm going to go through all of the Latina memoirs we have been able to do, it's so far in view to white memoirs, but it's because of who's been allowed to even memoir. And Rita is one of them. So. Okay, okay. There is so much more in my beat sheet. There's so much more juicy stuff to cover. So I'm going to move us through this a little faster so we can get to all of it. And first we have to discuss a memoir crossover moment. We have covered Joan Crawford's memoir on this podcast. We did a dueling episode with her daughter's memoir, it was Wild. To which I say I loved this story.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Rita wins the Oscar for playing Anita. She comes off stage and she says, as I glided off stage, the co host of the ceremony, Joan Crawford seized me and trapped me in her vice like grip. She was built like a linebacker. Okay.

[C]

She does that throughout the whole book.

[B]

And I'm like, she has to be the daintiest littlest thing in the whole world.

[C]

Got you.

[A]

But then Joan says, I am so glad she intoned that you have chosen to share your moment of triumph with me. She helped me for a good 15 minutes mugging for the photographers who were there to photograph me because of our height difference. I never saw Joan's face, just her impressive bosom when the. Anyways, this. Nothing tracks more to Joan Crawford than this moment of being like, I will be in these photos. And she's like, I'm so happy you want to do this, Darlene. And then does a whole photo shoot with Rita Moreno, who she'd never met, fudgeing the most Joan Crawford story.

[C]

I will note that it was the next year, the Oscars in 1963, where Joan did that thing where she accepted Anne Bancroft's Oscar to piss off Betty Davis.

[A]

God, Joan be Wylan at these Oscar ceremonies. Okay, so what is wild is that the moment she wins the Oscar, this book kind of drops off. The whole book changes.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

She talks about how roles did not pour in even though she won an Oscar, which is devastating.

[C]

I will say this feels like it gets back into her. It gets back into. It's left this kind of like encyclopedic.

[B]

Like Hollywood historian mode to like back to being about.

[A]

So interesting because I. I took it as like she just won the Oscar and now almost the rest of the book is going to be about Lenny. So let's get to Lenny. She has a couple of affairs that we're gonna skip for time. Just light little relationships until she meets a man at a party named Lenny. And he's a doctor. And the reason why she's so taken with him is that he doesn't know that she is famous and he was just actually interested in her. It's so sad, but it means so much to her. And instantly she's like. So we got married. It was an easy peasy love. Everything was easy breezy. And we had a little wedding and. And then we immediately got pregnant. And she wrote in here I had two great loves, Marlon Brando and Lenny. But when you read the book, you're like, you did not love Lenny. Yeah.

[B]

You were like, he was a marriage of convenience and like, need not love.

[A]

This felt like settling. Yes. Even though she was trying to be like, no, no, I loved him. Yeah.

[C]

And there's a moment where she says, I realized I'd grown up. Bells and whistles weren't what I need anymore. In fact, bells and whistles were now alarms, arms reminding me of unrealistic expectations. I wanted to be content and to be loved in a way I could trust. Lenny, I knew could help me live that kind of happier, more settled life.

[A]

And here's the thing to what she's saying, because that's how it starts. I'm like, oh, yes, what a beautiful love. We are about to find out so many details. Where you realize that paragraph was a lie. Where it's like, you did not marry a kind, sweet, stable man. You settled for Lenny, who I'm gonna say in some ways was just as bad.

[B]

He's very controlling.

[C]

Yeah, I was gonna say when she's only really had marlin to compare to for love.

[A]

No, she just had two good relationships. She was like, I dated this guy. He was nice, he seemed amazing.

[C]

And then the spanker.

[B]

The spanker was crazy. I was like, I get that you don't want to do that.

[A]

She was like, you want to spank me? Bye. Yeah, but that's what I mean though. She can see a red flag or at least like a fetish. She doesn't want to participate.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So let's. Let's get into it. They get married, she gets pregnant. She wrote, this is painful. It's honest. And people have these thoughts. And so I give her kudos for putting down thoughts that are not good. She wrote this. She said my pregnancy went well, but I had two secret concerns. The first was that I wouldn't be a good mother. I had therapy for years, long enough to know my character weaknesses. I knew that would mattered most to me was me. And worried that I might be too self absorbed. Absorbed and narcissistic. Not uncommon traits among actors to love a baby. In fact, I found myself becoming a little more self absorbed, worrying about whether or not I would be self absorbed. And that's the first secret. Then she said, I also fretted about the baby's skin color. I'm ashamed as I recall this now, but I couldn't help thinking my grandfather had dark skin. What if the baby is dark? How will Lenny feel? How will his family feel? How will my child feel if she has to deal with prejudice? How would everyone feel about my child if she were black? How would I feel? Skin. It still mattered. I knew it shouldn't, but until I had my daughter, I realized I would have loved her just as passionately no matter the color But I had worried about it. Such is the insidious nature of prejudice, even though I'd absorbed some fear of my own heredity as I wondered what African genes might lurk under my own skin.

[C]

This was brutal.

[B]

Okay, so I actually have a very strong, like, thought on this.

[C]

I just want to contextualize. Yes, this was 1966.

[B]

It was 1966. My parents are much whiter than I am. I am very dark in comparison. And this was a conversation that was had in my home. This is not that crazy. My mom is a very loving woman who would never say something like this, but this sentiment was brought up throughout my entire life. Like, my grandmother, when I interviewed her for my podcast, had made a comment that when I was born, they had called me la prien, like my grandfather did, which means the black, because I was the black one. Out of all my cousins, out of all my siblings and all the siblings, I won. But it is true. Like, my brother was very white, and I came out very dark, and we're only a year and a half apart. People would tell my mom on the street being like, is Becca's dad, Elijah's dad? Because the assumption was, my mom cheated on my dad because I was black and my brother was white. So I give her grace in this because this isn't an uncommon thing. And this is something that I think is a part of the colorism within the specifically Caribbean diaspora, like Cuban, Dominican, Puerto Rican. I think this type of colorism, because of our history with slavery, our history with issues in the United States, assimilation, this is.

[A]

It's the Spanish from Spain distinction.

[B]

It's not that crazy that she. I actually was more like, LOL at the narcissism part, which is. I thought what you were gonna say, not the colorism part. The colorism part, actually, I felt very heavily related to. And this is the conversation even me and my partner have had. Not because we're like, we wouldn't love a brown baby. But, like, my dad, we were like, is my dad going to be weird if my baby comes out black? Because he can't even comprehend that I'm black. Like, I tell my dad I identify as Afro Latina, and he's like, why? You know? But the reality is my partner is very indigenous Peruvian, and if we have children and there's a good chance this child's gonna look very indigenous and very black. And I'm like, is my dad gonna be weird with my baby about that? So I did actually relate with this.

[A]

Very helpful. Also, Becca, thank you so much for Sharing this. Cause I do think, obviously, because the overall education on diversity, there's so far to go. But I do think this in particular, that within your own family, you can have different definitions and identities. And I feel like for white people, they don't even know. They're like, wait, what? Like, how could your dad identify differently than you? Than identify. I just think that is such a. An important point that is not discussed at all. Because I read that and I was like, oh, my God, it's printed in a book.

[B]

No, I thought she actually wrote that.

[A]

Fernanda's gonna read this very well.

[B]

And it was, I think, very honest about, especially the time Christina, like you said. And also just like, I think the racial dynamics within the Caribbean diasporic community, specifically. But then there's also, like, this argument of, like, well, if you're darker than, you're worse, you know, so it's like you're battling your own community's, like, judgments on you. Well, on the world. Judgments on you. And I think she was very right to be like, and what is his family gonna think? Cause I have dated white men. Thank God I don't anymore, but I have. But, like, I had thought, because we got closer to the engagement potential realm, where I was like, what if we have children and their parents are, like, weird about our kids because, like, they could end up brown? You know, it is a very real thing.

[A]

It's the Meghan Markle, Prince Harry. Someone in the Royal Family.

[B]

The one drop rule.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. It also. We should make it clear. Lenny, her husband is Jewish. And so she's also like, oh, he has a totally different, like, culture and expectations than mine, especially in the 60s. We love our child. Yes.

[C]

I do think she, like, hedges with. She feels ashamed to recall it. To recall that this was her thinking. And I think it's both internalized colorism and racism that she's experiencing, but also the very real fear of the externalized prejudice and racism that her child could face at the time. Time. And yeah, I have a very similar story to Becca. I would walk into rooms and, like, I didn't look like my mom. And I could see people's, like, disappointment and, like, confusion over it and, like, whispers about, like, oh, like, who might my father be and, like, what he might look like? And it's just. It's odd, but it. It's. Sometimes it's your own people, too. So it. Yeah, this is complex. Very, like, kind of like, as uncomfortable as that is to read, it's true.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. But it's.

[A]

Yeah. That's. That's. That's exactly what I was feeling, which is like, this is brutal. It's internalized racism. It's colorism. It's just absolutely not okay. And also, the first step in dismantling it and not believing horrible things like that is to talk about your internalized racism and move through it. And so I just thank you both for talking on this, this, talking through this, sharing your experiences, because it's so complex. And, you know, it really reminds me of a friend of mine, Ursula. She has this line, it's so simple. But I think of it all the time, which is, there is diversity within diversity. And I think as people are understanding diversity, remembering that there is diversity within.

[B]

Diversity, not all skin folk are kinfolk.

[A]

There you go. Okay, so they have their daughter Fernanda, and then we learn about Lenny. And she said, it took me a decade to wake up to the subtext of my relationship to Lenny, to realize the unspoken contract between us. Stated that Lenny would be my, quote, good daddy, and I would be his, quote, little girl, forever and ever. At this point, I vomited, which I.

[B]

Felt like it took her too long to get to that because I understood their dynamic very differently until she said that. And I was like, oh, yes, this is.

[A]

This is what's crazy. She wrote like, oh, it was so nice to be in a good, stable love.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then 20 pages later, wrote this. From the start of our marriage, Lenny had stalked me. I don't know where he found the phone numbers sometimes of where I was, but he would locate me in restaurants and call to ask to speak to me. He would find me in beauty shops. He would always find me anywhere. It was. It was eerie. Wherever I went, Lenny would always call me to say things like, what are you doing? Why are you delayed so much? Didn't you tell me you would be home at 4?

[B]

That was, like, brutal.

[A]

And then she's like, Ultimately, I came to believe that Lenny was just afraid of losing me. No, no. Lenny is also much older than her. He is financially stable. At the time he meets her, she is not. He's a doctor. He's a doctor. Her career has dwindled despite winning the Oscar. And it really becomes. He starts taking care of her. And this is, in a way, where he was, Daddy. I don't ever want to fucking hear Daddy in a relationship. I've never liked relationship.

[B]

I've never liked the daddy thing. Personally, I'm like, I'm good. I have a dad. I don't want. I don't want you My partner is my dad.

[A]

I've got no dad. I'm my own dad. Don't. Don't try and have sex with me and be my dad. What the hell is happening? Exactly.

[B]

I'm like, I just. It's just a little. It's a line that I don't like crossing.

[A]

God damn it. Get ready for a Dringo. I screamed. She was like, I had just won the Oscar. Like, why wasn't I getting more parts? And she said, I question my relevance. Is my career ending right before my eyes? Do I have the wrong agent? Is my manager on top of things? Wait, but Lenny is my manager. We have a husbander in the house. And also, this is the type of husbander who's always a husbander, which. He has no skills relevant to the arts. He's a doctor and is like, I know. I'll manage your career. No wonder. No wonder her career dwindled after this. And she said not long after his retirement from medicine. Lenny uses free time to help with my career.

[B]

His free time. It's like, baby, this is your full time career. Like, maybe he.

[A]

He can do surgery. He's not gonna get you the role.

[B]

I wouldn't even want him to run a doctor's office. You know what I'm saying? Doctors aren't built to be. Be like, in those types of positions. Like, what do you. Sir.

[A]

I was sick finding out that he had been her husband, Jer, the whole time. She's basically like, I talked about divorce every second of my life being married to him, but overall, I did love him. And she would write like, I feel like I'm making it sound bad, but I did. I mean, they're married for 45 years. Then she's like, so I wasn't getting work, so I called my friend Marlon.

[B]

Brando, which is crazy.

[C]

Said, what?

[A]

And then she tells us, I've been talking to him the whole time. And Lenny talks to him, too. And Marlon Brando loves to be silent on the phone for 20 minutes. That's just what Marlon's like. But Lenny wasn't used to it. And I said, what the is happening?

[C]

I had to close the book and take a lap because I couldn't. I was just like, no, Rita, What. What are you doing? What's going on?

[A]

What. How did Marlon get back here?

[B]

But it's like. It's almost like Lenny's in on it a little bit to know that, like, she's still talking to Marlon Brandon, you.

[A]

Know what I'm saying?

[B]

I'm like, constantly, it's like, what are you, a cook? Like, I don't understand.

[A]

Like, but then also, like, you're jealous and stalking Rita. But then also, you're. I guess as her husband Jerry, you're like, you should go meet me.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

She would go to Film Pilots and stay in Marlin's house in Los Angeles wearing his scent.

[C]

Wearing his scent the whole time, Wearing his perfume.

[A]

Oh, my God. Then he puts her in a movie where they clearly have a really unique unsafe scene where she hits him, he hits her. She's fully naked from the back in this movie. And when Marlon Brando dies, she's like, the only photograph said to be in his entire home when he died is this one. And she prints it in the book where he is clothed and holding her, and she is fully naked and they.

[B]

Are kissing, which was like, the aftercare scene after he had just, like, lost his mind, hit her back because he, like, got triggered by doing the thing that he asked her to do, which was like, to slap him.

[A]

Yeah. And then as. Again, almost every memoirist writes, they write about the end of Marlon Brando's life, and they all write about his weight. Barbara Streisand writes about how he would get stuck behind the steering wheel of his car, and she'd have to, like, butter him out. And everyone writes about this.

[B]

I feel like it's, like, the only thing they have on him. Like, they're like, this is our little.

[C]

It's awful. They'll write about his entire meals. And she actually does. Rita does this with another person earlier on in the book where she's like, he ate two whole chickens.

[A]

I think it's weird to know, like, she Dringo. She lifts Marlon Brando's weight in the book. And when he died and me and Lenny, and I'm like, this is so nuts. I can't believe you let us go through so many years without realizing Marlon was there in your life, every second of it.

[B]

And told us that you guys stopped talking like you did. You made it a point that you said. Your therapist was like, no, it was.

[C]

A total jump scare. He was like, us jump scare scared.

[A]

And then she's like, oh, yeah. I stayed in his house a bunch when I went to la. I mean, there's so much we're missing. And then she writes this. We staged a wedding for my daughter at a gorgeous resort in the Carmel valley. I said, 30 years have passed.

[C]

What?

[B]

Almost.

[A]

And maybe it's out of respect to Fernanda, but, like, yeah, we. We are at the end, baby. She's like, hated my marriage with Lenny. Talk to Marlon every goddamn day of my life. Love him still wearing his perfume. My daughter's married at Carmel Valley, which, by the way, I've been to that hotel some. That's some nice. Some nice.

[B]

Which is funny because in the book she was like, telling her daughter, like, no, you're not gonna have a big wedding. Like, you're like, when she's growing up, like, it's not gonna be this, it's.

[A]

Not gonna be that.

[B]

And I'm like, babe, you're a Hollywood royalty movie star who married a rich doctor. You're.

[A]

Who's obsessed with her daughter.

[B]

She's gonna have the wedding of her dreams. Okay? You have the. The funds. My mom told me for a long time I wasn't allowed to because we didn't have money.

[A]

Yeah, no, absolutely. And she's like. And then we rode in a horse drawn carriage through Carmel Valley or Carmel. Okay. So then she's like, in his last years, Marlon would call and whisper, I miss you crazy. Which, while I get it, Rita, in other memoirs I have read, there are women who are like, I'd never met Marlon Brando in my life. And he called me up at the end of his days and was like, let's hang out. Yeah. So like, this man be calling everybody. And she's writing about that. She's like, I invited him to dinner, but it was often awkward, you think? And then she goes, and by the way, I won an Emmy. They do want to know what it was for Christina.

[C]

It was for her appearance on the Muppet show, which is actually how I first come to know her, particularly, like, and it's funny, cuz Gina Rodriguez has the same story of watching her perform Fever on the Muppet show and performing with Animal. And Animal interrupts her with his drumming.

[B]

Cool.

[C]

It's. And at the end, she kind of like crashes two symbols on. On his head. And he goes. And I remember this because my mom stopped. I was watching. I was a little kid. And she's like, oh, that's Rita Murdo. She's Puerto Rican just like you. And it was like the first time I'd seen a Puerto Rican on screen. I was like five or something like that. And to me, I was like, oh, that means she lives on my aunt's block on 52nd Street. I didn't realize it was like.

[A]

You.

[C]

Know, but it felt like she was in proximity to me. But I did have another opportunity to see Rita in real life. And we could talk about that at the end.

[A]

Oh, I love that. I love that. Yeah. I mean, I. It is in there a little bit, she said. There followed my career salvation from 1997 to 2003 as Sister Peter Marie on Oz. It was a heavenly cast setup. Then she said, of course, the stories were all grim. Male rape was a constant. Prisoners were regularly knifed, and a few died. Nonetheless, I injected moments of levity in the outtakes takes. Oh, and I won another Emmy. So it's just a very short write up. Given these longer things, we barely get her Tony win. Except she said she was, like, too loud and wild at the ceremony. And she apologizes.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

But I love it.

[C]

Yeah. We got more on Marlin than we did west side Story. We got more on, you know, it's crazy.

[A]

And then Lenny passes away. He was older than her, and she says she fell in love with him again when she got to take care of. Of him.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But then it's a pretty short part of the book. And then it. It ends and. And she writes this. Yes, there are loose ends, but here I am, healthy, happy beyond what one reasonably expects, fully able to remember and reflect and equip to dream. I'm deeply grateful for the applause, and I thrive in the spotlight. Yes, I love the attention, but when the early morning fog blankets the hills where I live and the curtain lifts, I look out the window and see far below, my daughter's home filled with the lives of two budding little men. And my heart is full.

[C]

There is something beautiful to me that she. She lost these brothers, and then in the end, she gets two grandsons.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And I don't know if she has tied that in a way to anything, but it just, like, really struck me as very, like, karmic or like the way the life can wrap around again. It's just like you lost these young men in. In your life, but then you were kind of given the gift of having grandsons and.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Shepherding these young men with your heart and soul and care. Yeah. That your mother couldn't give to your brothers.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, that's really nice. All right, well, we're gonna do the booktal test really quickly. I just have to say, she published this in 2013, and a fun bonus fact is that in her bio, they talk about how she is on the show Happily Divorced, which is the TV show we just referenced, having read Fran Drescher's memoir. So that was Fran Drescher's TV show about marrying a gay man and how they were happily divorced, and Rita was on that TV show, and of Course, this book is written and published before she even does One Day at a Time, which was a huge resurgence for her.

[B]

This book comes out so early in comparison to, like, this last leg of her career where she's, like. She has her cameo in west side Story. West side Story gets revived.

[C]

She's an executive producer on it.

[B]

She's the executive producer. She gets to see the role, get renominated and win another Oscar. Oscar. And be there for it. To see it happen. One day at a time happens like so much life still happens. Post this book, which is incredible.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[C]

And that's why I kind of want to hear from her again. I kind of want to be like.

[A]

And I. I think if we called Rita, I feel like she'd be like, hey, let's hang. Okay. I want to do the book Dill Test. First question. We're all going to answer each question. First question is, was the author vulnerable in the sharing of her trip?

[C]

I think to an extent, we got vulnerability. Like, we talked about, you know, the suicide, the abortion, her feelings on race and how she was perceived and how she was worried. But I think there were moments where she, like, wasn't honest with her, either herself or us, about Marlon.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

What was going on in the middle part of the career where it turned into this kind of encyclopedic Hollywood lore. So I think she was very vulnerable. But I still want more. I still wanted another layer peeled off.

[B]

I agree with you, Christina. I feel like she was vulnerable in the Hollywood aspect, and I do wonder if she was just, like, at that point, thought her career was done, and so she was willing to kind of. Because this is before me, too, contextually.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So she kind of gave us some, like, real, like, me, too. Moments that probably a lot of people were still afraid to talk about. And I do wonder if it was because she was like, well, you know, I'm so old now. Like, I'm not doing that much. You know, Might as well.

[C]

I mean, just think about how our language has changed in 10 years about sexual assault and representation and all this stuff. I really am curious if she's learned anything from that, you know? Yeah.

[A]

And I can.

[B]

I feel like for the time, she was very vulnerable and very honest about those aspects. But I agree that, like, when it came for her personal. I honestly don't feel like she was actually that vulnerable. I feel like she, like, yes, the Marlon Brando. But I'm like, I don't feel like we got to see your inner world about that. I don't feel like, you were very honest about your marriage and, like, especially for how many years you guys were married and for how little we actually learned about it. And I think her relationship with her family, I don't feel like we talked enough about that, considering she literally has a long lost brother she never met. And then we just got a quick note at the end that her other brother just died of his vices because of their trauma. But, like, not really talking about the trauma. We barely learned about her mom and her five husbands and how that affected her life and. Or how it affected her marriage. We kind of get it in, like, a last note at the end of the book. I just feel like there was a lot about her actual life that we did not get to hear about.

[A]

I gotta tell you both, I am a yes, but here's why.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

I'm gonna say often, especially with the older memoirs, where it feels like the writing of the book is the first time they ever process their life, which is hard. That's so hard. And I feel like. Like she gave us everything she had and that now, because she wrote the book, she probably has more. But in the book, she's like, why didn't I ever look for my brother? Like, she never even asked herself. So I don't think she could give us the things we are seeking, but not because she didn't want to. I just think she's been through so much that I think she gave us a lot. That's what I'll say. Okay, second question. Was it entertaining to read? Yes. Yeah.

[B]

Resounding. Yeah, it was very entertaining. I thought she just. Because I actually, for time, I'm dyslexic and a slow reader. So I was like, okay, I only have less than a week to read this book. I did the audiobook, and I felt like it was so nice to hear her do the audiobook because she is such a theatrical person. And it felt very, like, fun to listen to. I'm not a big fan of doing audiobooks. I prefer to read the books. But I thought she did a great job.

[A]

I love that. Yeah, 100% entertaining for me, too. Okay, final question. You never know which which way this one goes. Did reading this book elevate your life in any way?

[C]

I'm gonna say yes. And I will say this. To me, she's always been badass. She's always been, like, an incredible performer, incredible talent that cannot be denied. Right. And to see how weak she felt when she was embodying Anita, right at this, like, very performance of a strong Latina woman was probably the moments where she was internally weakest because of what she was going through, both in the industry, her personal life, and with Marlon, and to also read about her resilience. And she writes about having resilience. There's a chapter about that and how that is a characteristic that Pallante. We've talked about this on my show is like, you move onward. You keep going. That spirit was embodied in her. It just reminded me how much you do have to endure, but you still have to keep going, because the next thing is, like, right there waiting for you.

[A]

Oh, that's beautiful. What about you, Becca?

[B]

I feel like it did elevate my life in a way that, like, I would say I felt very proud to be Puerto Rican reading this book. I knew of her as this figure, but I didn't know this deeply about her life, and I felt very connected. I saw a lot of myself in her. I saw a lot of my family in her. And to see her triumph and the big name that she is to not just Puerto Ricans, but. But to Hollywood, I felt very proud. I felt elevated.

[A]

I love that. And I am something that happens often on this podcast, which is that this conversation with you both really elevated my life. But I think I needed what you added and said. I don't think the book had handed me some of these takeaways that I have now, which I feel really grateful for. But I do want to say that I adore Rita Moreno, and I really resonate with the part of her that had to be such a survivor. And you can tell she had to. To compartmentalize so much. And I just. I just think she's such a light and such a gem, and I'm, like, just so thrilled to have this book and that she, like, took the time to do this and do the documentary and then had a huge career after this book. So I. I'm so glad we finally covered this memoir.

[C]

I know. Yeah.

[A]

Even though the Marlon parts made me.

[C]

Mad, I know they really made me want to throw a book. I also got to see her perform. I was an audience member when they were filming One Day at a time for an episode, and so I got to sit in the audience and, like, watch her perform, arguably at what she does best, which is, like, comedy. I mean, she's a great dramatic actress. She's incredible actress. But I think you really see Rita shine when she's doing comedy.

[B]

I agree.

[C]

Yeah. So I got.

[B]

I love One Day at a Time.

[C]

Yes. I was with my mom. I got to witness it. And then afterwards I got to go on the set and I was like in proximity to her and I looking in her direction and I was just like, you know what? This isn't like the fact that I got to be this close and we breathe the same air. And I got to see her do her craft at a time where she was just like, she still got it. She was still sharp. It was enough for me as someone who has been like a fan of her work. And I'm so glad that I had that moment. And like, reading this book only kind of deepened that experience.

[A]

I love that so much. Becca, thank you so much for coming on. Will you tell everyone about your podcast? Because I feel like we've heard sips and the bits in this episode of some great things that are coming on so. So people can listen. Starting February 3rd, tell them where to go.

[B]

Oh, my God. You can find welcome to El barrio. It's the iHeart podcast with the Michael Twitter network. Find it anywhere you get. Your podcasts trailer will be out the 27th. But to give context on the show, it is me, Becca Ramos, interviewing really notable, amazing Puerto Ricans that are basically doing the work to redefine what it means to be Puerto Rican. And hopefully by the end of every episode, the listener, whether you are Puerto Rican or not, feel a little bit closer to both, no matter where you.

[C]

Are in the world.

[B]

And then, yeah, we end every episode with a recommendation, whether it's like a book, artist, whatever piece that people in the diaspora should get to know about Puerto Rico. Not just the Bad Bunnies and the Ricky Martins of the world, but like the more niche artists doing really cool things that other Puerto Ricans are like, tuned into.

[A]

Becca, this sounds fantastic. Thank you so much. I'm so glad we got you for this episode. How perfect.

[B]

This was so exciting. I'm so happy to have been able to come on.

[A]

This was so fantastic. Cannot wait to listen to your podcast. Everyone go listen and listen. Am I going to try and track down that Marlon perfume? Yes, I am. Absolutely.

[B]

Yeah. I'm also curious about it.

[A]

A big thank you to our senior managing producer, Christina Lopez, our executive producer Jordan Moncada, Our sounds introduced engineer Marcus Hamm, and our amazing associate producer, Jaron Padre. I also want to give a huge thank you to our incredible partners over at Thrive Cosmetics and every plate. We will link to those brands in the show notes. Go check them out. Everything else we discussed is also linked in the show notes. And if you have questions, thoughts, comments, go to the Patreon sign up there's a free tier you can join, leave a comment, chat with your fellow cookies. We will keep the book club continuing over there.